Latest / Something Extra / The Discipline of Clarity w/ Caren Merrick

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The Discipline of Clarity w/ Caren Merrick · Something Extra

0:02
Lisa Nichols: Chromosomes.
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Lisa Nichols: Little strands of nucleic acids and proteins are the fundamental genetic instructions
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Lisa Nichols: that tell us who we are at birth.
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Lisa Nichols: Most people are born with forty six chromosomes, but each year in the United
0:14
Lisa Nichols: States, about six thousand people are born with an extra chromosome, making them a
0:18
Lisa Nichols: person with Down syndrome.
0:20
Lisa Nichols: If you've ever encountered someone with Down syndrome, you know that they are some
0:24
Lisa Nichols: of the kindest, most joyful people you will ever meet.
0:27
Lisa Nichols: They truly have something extra.
0:30
Lisa Nichols: My name is Lisa Nichols, and for thirty years, I have been both the
0:34
Lisa Nichols: CEO of Technology Partners and the mother to Ali.
0:38
Lisa Nichols: Ali has something extra in every sense of the word.
0:41
Lisa Nichols: I have been blessed to be by her side as she impacts everyone she
0:45
Lisa Nichols: meets.
0:46
Lisa Nichols: Through these two important roles as CEO and mother to Ally, I have
0:50
Lisa Nichols: witnessed countless life lessons that have fundamentally changed the way I look at the
0:54
Lisa Nichols: world.
0:55
Lisa Nichols: While you may not have an extra chromosome, every leader has something extra that
0:59
Lisa Nichols: defines who you are.
1:00
Lisa Nichols: Join me as I explore the something extra in leaders from all walks of
1:04
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1:20
Lisa Nichols: Before we get started, I'm excited to share that my book Something Extra is
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Lisa Nichols: It is rooted in the remarkable spirit of our daughter, Ally, and the heartfelt
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Lisa Nichols: conversations we've had on the podcast.
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Lisa Nichols: Visit something extra book dot com or find it at Amazon or in all
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1:44
Lisa Nichols: I'm grateful to have Karen Merrick on the show today.
1:47
Lisa Nichols: Karen is a tech founder, private equity advisor, and the author of
1:51
Lisa Nichols: the upcoming book, The Power of Insight.
1:54
Lisa Nichols: Well, Karen Merrick, hi, sweet sister.
1:57
Lisa Nichols: It is so good to have you on the something extra podcast today.
2:01
Lisa Nichols: I'm so delighted that we can make this work.
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Caren Merrick: Thank you.
2:04
Caren Merrick: I'm just you're you're my favorite podcast.
2:06
Caren Merrick: I want you to know.
2:07
Caren Merrick: I've left you five star review.
2:09
Caren Merrick: And every time I listen, Lisa, I get a new insight.
2:13
Caren Merrick: I get something valuable that I would not have gotten otherwise.
2:16
Caren Merrick: So thank you.
2:17
Lisa Nichols: Well, thank you for saying that.
2:19
Lisa Nichols: Thank you for saying that.
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Lisa Nichols: And, Karen, the deal is I do too.
2:24
Lisa Nichols: Every time I have a guest on, I feel like I'm learning and I'm
2:28
Lisa Nichols: growing.
2:28
Lisa Nichols: So, and I know that this is not gonna be any exception.
2:32
Lisa Nichols: There's so much to you, girl, though.
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Lisa Nichols: I mean, we could do, like, a three hour podcast and not cover Karen
2:37
Lisa Nichols: Merrick.
2:38
Lisa Nichols: There's so much so much good stuff, with you.
2:42
Lisa Nichols: But you and I know each other.
2:43
Lisa Nichols: I always love to go back and tell our listeners how we meet people.
2:46
Lisa Nichols: Right?
2:47
Lisa Nichols: And so you and I know each other through an amazing organization that you
2:51
Lisa Nichols: and I have both come to love in that CEO forum.
2:56
Caren Merrick: Mhmm.
2:56
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
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Caren Merrick: So there's there's it's such a great fellowship of women in
3:01
Caren Merrick: business.
3:02
Caren Merrick: We are all very mission driven, and we want ourselves,
3:06
Caren Merrick: our teams, and our companies to flourish.
3:07
Caren Merrick: And I I'm so grateful that we're a part of it, Lisa.
3:10
Caren Merrick: I wouldn't have met you otherwise.
3:12
Lisa Nichols: I know.
3:12
Lisa Nichols: I know.
3:13
Lisa Nichols: Because you're in Virginia, and I'm in Saint Louis, the the chances
3:17
Lisa Nichols: of us our paths crossing probably would not have happened otherwise,
3:21
Lisa Nichols: but I'm I'm very, very grateful, for the CEO forum.
3:25
Lisa Nichols: So, Karen, oh my goodness.
3:26
Lisa Nichols: We're gonna talk about all this, but you have lived in boardrooms.
3:29
Lisa Nichols: You've lived in basements.
3:31
Lisa Nichols: You've lived in government offices, and you've been in the start up trenches.
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Lisa Nichols: When you look at this season in your life, how do you describe
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Lisa Nichols: you to yourself?
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Caren Merrick: Oh, wow.
3:43
Caren Merrick: That is such a great question.
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Caren Merrick: I had never really thought about that, but I but I do believe
3:50
Caren Merrick: that we are all given these opportunities for a reason,
3:54
Caren Merrick: and it's part of how we fulfill the purpose that we have in our
3:58
Caren Merrick: lives.
3:59
Caren Merrick: And so I look back on all of these opportunities, and it wasn't like
4:03
Caren Merrick: when I was a little girl, I said, oh, I wanna do a start
4:06
Caren Merrick: up.
4:06
Caren Merrick: I wanna be a cabinet secretary.
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Caren Merrick: I want to write a book.
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Caren Merrick: But I will say that I I did from a very early age
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Caren Merrick: want my life to count for something.
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Caren Merrick: I really did, and and it was part of my faith journey about how
4:19
Caren Merrick: I became a Christian as I, you know, I looked at the world and
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Caren Merrick: I thought, you know, what's what's gonna really last?
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Caren Merrick: Everything is so passing and temporary, but I want my life to count
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Caren Merrick: for something.
4:29
Caren Merrick: And so this is what it's all led to, and now I'm in a
4:33
Caren Merrick: new chapter where I hopefully will be able to use all of those experiences
4:36
Caren Merrick: in a way that that is helps people flourish.
4:40
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's so good.
4:41
Lisa Nichols: That is so good.
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Lisa Nichols: I was just telling you about my friend, Paul Hood.
4:46
Lisa Nichols: And at the end, you know, his something extra.
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Lisa Nichols: And I said, Paul, nobody's ever said this, but he said, the something extra
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Lisa Nichols: is for you to know that this is not about you.
4:56
Lisa Nichols: None of this is about you.
4:58
Lisa Nichols: You know?
4:59
Lisa Nichols: And, I mean, that's precisely what you just said using
5:03
Lisa Nichols: what you've been given, the experiences, the education, everything that you've
5:07
Lisa Nichols: done in your life, Karen, to help people in your sphere flourish.
5:11
Lisa Nichols: And that could be people in government.
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Lisa Nichols: That could be people in the tech start up.
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Lisa Nichols: I mean, people in the community.
5:16
Lisa Nichols: Right?
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Lisa Nichols: So, it's really not about us.
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Lisa Nichols: It's really about what we give back to the world and to others.
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Lisa Nichols: So I love that.
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Lisa Nichols: Well, tell me this.
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Lisa Nichols: What do you feel is the most life giving piece right now for
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Lisa Nichols: you in this chapter of your life?
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Lisa Nichols: Because you've you you have turned the page on another chapter, which is so
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Lisa Nichols: exciting.
5:35
Caren Merrick: Oh, indeed.
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Caren Merrick: You know, what's so fascinating to me is to realize
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Caren Merrick: that
5:43
Caren Merrick: everything that has happened so far is bigger than I could have ever imagined.
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Caren Merrick: And that that means that my future is going to be the same way.
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Caren Merrick: If I look back on my life, it every single time there was a
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Caren Merrick: challenge that it gave me something.
5:59
Caren Merrick: You know?
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Caren Merrick: It gave me an insight, which is something that I'm really fascinated by right
6:02
Caren Merrick: now, and we can talk about that more later if you'd like.
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Caren Merrick: But I do I really do.
6:07
Caren Merrick: Just getting back to sort of, like, knowing yourself and knowing who you're who
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Caren Merrick: you are, I am happiest when I am helping either people
6:16
Caren Merrick: or businesses or organizations flourish.
6:19
Caren Merrick: There's something so life giving about playing a part in that.
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Caren Merrick: And, honestly, every time I get a new experience or I'm doing something or
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Caren Merrick: even when I like, I'm traveling with my husband or sailing with my husband,
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Caren Merrick: I think this is really so much fun, and I love it.
6:33
Caren Merrick: But how can I use this to help someone else?
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Caren Merrick: Like, what insight can I gain?
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Caren Merrick: What what can I do in all of this that's going to be that's
6:42
Caren Merrick: gonna help someone else flourish?
6:44
Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
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Lisa Nichols: That and that's such a a wonderful question to ask ourselves daily,
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Lisa Nichols: whatever it is that we're doing.
6:51
Lisa Nichols: Right?
6:52
Lisa Nichols: So, how can you use that?
6:54
Lisa Nichols: Well, I, you know, wanna get into this kind of like you're growing up.
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Lisa Nichols: I mean, you were the first woman or first family member to earn a
7:02
Lisa Nichols: college degree, but you've got three other siblings.
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Lisa Nichols: Right, Karen?
7:06
Caren Merrick: Yes.
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Caren Merrick: I was the first woman in my family to earn a college degree.
7:10
Caren Merrick: And what's remarkable to me is that as I consider my
7:14
Caren Merrick: parents, they were very, very young when they got married.
7:17
Caren Merrick: Like, my mom was seventeen.
7:19
Caren Merrick: My dad was twenty.
7:21
Caren Merrick: And because of that, they both worked, and they had children
7:25
Caren Merrick: and have four children, like, all in a row.
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Caren Merrick: By the time my mom was twenty six, she had four kids.
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Caren Merrick: And yet they had the presence of mind to
7:35
Caren Merrick: give us a solid, stable upbringing.
7:38
Caren Merrick: There was a lot of love and adventure in my family.
7:41
Caren Merrick: And our parents, because they both worked, they asked a lot of us.
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Caren Merrick: And so all four of my parents' children are entrepreneurs.
7:49
Caren Merrick: And I think that's so fascinating because my father worked for he was a
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Caren Merrick: utility company lineman, and every night after work, he would go
7:57
Caren Merrick: to college on the GI Bill.
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Caren Merrick: So he put himself through college with the GI Bill with four kids in
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Caren Merrick: the house, and then he went on to get his MBA.
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Caren Merrick: My mom worked full time, and she was a big support to
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Caren Merrick: my father.
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Caren Merrick: And what ended up happening is because she was working, she'd say, alright,
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Caren Merrick: to the to her two oldest daughters, my sister and I.
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Caren Merrick: She would say, I want you to have dinner ready and the house clean
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Caren Merrick: and your homework done by the time I get home from work.
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Caren Merrick: And so you have to figure it out, and I am so grateful to
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Caren Merrick: her and my father for giving us a work ethic.
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Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
8:31
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
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Lisa Nichols: Because that is remarkable.
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Lisa Nichols: I mean, how many families have four kids and they're all
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Lisa Nichols: entrepreneurs and in business?
8:39
Lisa Nichols: I mean, you know, that's that's I think that's probably not very common.
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Caren Merrick: Right.
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Caren Merrick: I I have to just credit our parents for asking a lot of us
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Caren Merrick: and and really engaged in what we do.
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Caren Merrick: The other thing my mom did is she got a job at the local
8:53
Caren Merrick: high school so that she would have all of the same holidays off as
8:57
Caren Merrick: we had.
8:59
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's awesome.
9:01
Lisa Nichols: So you had her presence.
9:02
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
9:03
Lisa Nichols: A lot too, which is really wonderful.
9:05
Lisa Nichols: Gosh.
9:06
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
9:07
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
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Lisa Nichols: You know, what did your I because I read this.
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Lisa Nichols: What did your mom say to you all the time about college?
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Caren Merrick: Oh, my goodness.
9:16
Caren Merrick: Yes.
9:16
Caren Merrick: So my mom would say a a couple of things.
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Caren Merrick: She said three different things that were so important.
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Caren Merrick: She said to me, god is and was and always will be.
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Caren Merrick: That's a really important thing to say to a little kid.
9:28
Caren Merrick: And then she would say, you can be anything you wanna be if you
9:32
Caren Merrick: work hard enough.
9:33
Caren Merrick: And but the third thing she said, which was very specific to me is,
9:37
Caren Merrick: she said of all my children, Karen, you're the one who's going to college.
9:41
Caren Merrick: And I'm grateful that she did because I think I really took
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Caren Merrick: that to heart, and I thought, oh, I need to honor
9:49
Caren Merrick: that.
9:49
Caren Merrick: My mom is saying that to me.
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Caren Merrick: That's part of my destiny, and I don't take that lightly.
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Caren Merrick: Now what ended up happening is after twenty three years of marriage, sadly,
9:58
Caren Merrick: my parents got a divorce, and so there was not the financial means
10:02
Caren Merrick: for me to go to college.
10:03
Caren Merrick: So I set out on my own and started to support myself.
10:06
Caren Merrick: And so I went to college a little bit later, but I did go,
10:09
Caren Merrick: and I did the degree in three years.
10:12
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
10:12
Lisa Nichols: I know.
10:13
Lisa Nichols: I I I read that that you didn't start until you were twenty five.
10:16
Lisa Nichols: There's a lot there, but I want to camp out on this for just
10:20
Lisa Nichols: a minute.
10:21
Lisa Nichols: The words I was thinking when I was reading that, I'm like, the power
10:25
Lisa Nichols: of words.
10:27
Lisa Nichols: The power of words.
10:28
Lisa Nichols: I mean, your mom kinda spoke that into you, Karen, and that kinda became
10:32
Lisa Nichols: a little bit of what you expected from yourself.
10:34
Lisa Nichols: Right?
10:35
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
10:36
Lisa Nichols: So,
10:37
Lisa Nichols: you know, talk about this because I know that you had this pivotal story
10:41
Lisa Nichols: because you didn't really have the money or you just said your parents weren't
10:44
Lisa Nichols: able to financially help you.
10:45
Lisa Nichols: You had to put yourself through college.
10:48
Lisa Nichols: But I love this that you went on the press your luck.
10:51
Caren Merrick: You read that.
10:52
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
10:53
Caren Merrick: Tell that story.
10:55
Caren Merrick: Oh my goodness.
10:56
Caren Merrick: So I I had actually been out on the mission field first.
10:59
Caren Merrick: I had such a profound experience when I was twenty years old
11:04
Caren Merrick: that I thought, oh, the whole world needs to know about Jesus.
11:08
Caren Merrick: And I was just so it transformed my life.
11:11
Caren Merrick: And so I'm out on the mission field, and I end up I'm in
11:15
Caren Merrick: a missionary training with youth with the mission in Lausanne, Switzerland because
11:19
Caren Merrick: I I have had high school French, and I loved French speaking countries.
11:24
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
11:24
Caren Merrick: And so we end up going to a place called Labrie
11:28
Caren Merrick: with a man named Francis Schaeffer.
11:30
Caren Merrick: And Francis Schaeffer said, you missionary kids, we'd go every Friday night.
11:34
Caren Merrick: And he'd say, you missionary students need to realize that the whole world is
11:37
Caren Merrick: a mission field, and and we need people like you in education
11:42
Caren Merrick: and in business and in in every kind of
11:46
Caren Merrick: industry that you can imagine.
11:48
Lisa Nichols: Everything.
11:48
Lisa Nichols: Right?
11:49
Lisa Nichols: So
11:49
Caren Merrick: I had sold everything to go on the mission field.
11:52
Caren Merrick: So I come back thinking, alright.
11:55
Caren Merrick: He's right.
11:55
Caren Merrick: And I felt this that that was my my leading and my calling is
11:59
Caren Merrick: to go go back, find a way to to go to college, and
12:03
Caren Merrick: then go into the world.
12:05
Caren Merrick: And so I joined this wonderful church, and there we had a great
12:09
Caren Merrick: friend in this church.
12:10
Caren Merrick: All of my friends actually were at Fuller Seminary.
12:13
Caren Merrick: And so there was this wonderful man named Kent Norell who eventually became a
12:18
Caren Merrick: a pastor, and he went on Press Your Luck.
12:21
Caren Merrick: And he said, Karen, you should do that too.
12:23
Caren Merrick: And I said, oh, I did not have the confidence to do that at
12:27
Caren Merrick: all.
12:27
Caren Merrick: And he said, look.
12:28
Caren Merrick: I'm going to help you understand how this works.
12:31
Caren Merrick: So I went to take I took the test, passed the test,
12:35
Caren Merrick: and they called me in for an audition, and he said, this is what
12:37
Caren Merrick: you do in the audition.
12:38
Caren Merrick: You clap for everybody else.
12:41
Caren Merrick: You just show up with energy.
12:43
Caren Merrick: So I was selected for the show, and then I'm on the show, and
12:48
Caren Merrick: and I won.
12:49
Caren Merrick: I won.
12:50
Caren Merrick: At at that point in my life, I won eleven thousand five hundred dollars,
12:53
Caren Merrick: which was exactly the amount of money that I needed to
12:57
Caren Merrick: go and put myself into college and pay for my rent,
13:01
Caren Merrick: and it was enough to get me started.
13:03
Caren Merrick: And it was it was as if the good lord was saying, no more
13:06
Caren Merrick: excuses.
13:07
Caren Merrick: You can do that.
13:08
Lisa Nichols: That's so awesome.
13:10
Lisa Nichols: I love that story so much.
13:11
Lisa Nichols: I love that story so much.
13:12
Lisa Nichols: I think you started in community college, but then you ended up graduating from
13:16
Lisa Nichols: UCLA.
13:17
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
13:17
Lisa Nichols: I do.
13:18
Lisa Nichols: Really good school.
13:20
Lisa Nichols: Oh, I love that.
13:22
Lisa Nichols: Well, you know, do you think that maybe I mean,
13:26
Lisa Nichols: because this changed your the trajectory of your life.
13:28
Lisa Nichols: Right?
13:29
Lisa Nichols: It really did.
13:29
Lisa Nichols: Probably your time with Francis.
13:31
Lisa Nichols: I remember,
13:33
Lisa Nichols: like, what was his one book I read many years ago?
13:39
Lisa Nichols: This is How You Are to Live.
13:41
Caren Merrick: How Then Shall We Live.
13:42
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
13:43
Lisa Nichols: How Then Shall We Live.
13:44
Lisa Nichols: Oh, such an amazing book if listeners wanna pick that up.
13:49
Lisa Nichols: But I'm sure, like, the time at Liberty and then this, I mean, truly
13:52
Lisa Nichols: changed the trajectory of your life.
13:54
Lisa Nichols: So I kind of wanna get into, into this.
13:57
Lisa Nichols: In nineteen ninety six, you cofounded WebMethods.
14:00
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
14:01
Lisa Nichols: In your basement,
14:04
Lisa Nichols: with with Philip, who is your husband, and, he was from Australia,
14:08
Lisa Nichols: I think.
14:09
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, I there's so much here that I wanna talk about, but
14:13
Lisa Nichols: you grew this into one of the most successful IPOs in history.
14:17
Lisa Nichols: I mean, I think you guys were two hundred million dollar company, eleven hundred
14:21
Lisa Nichols: employees, and then ended up going IPO, and we'll talk about that.
14:24
Lisa Nichols: But tell our listeners about webMethods.
14:27
Lisa Nichols: And I thought it was really funny,
14:30
Lisa Nichols: Karen, because I'd read where you had told Philip even
14:34
Lisa Nichols: on your date, now listen.
14:36
Lisa Nichols: I'm gonna be starting a company.
14:37
Lisa Nichols: I just want you to know.
14:38
Caren Merrick: Okay?
14:39
Caren Merrick: And then, well,
14:40
Lisa Nichols: I wanna start my own company too.
14:43
Lisa Nichols: So you guys were very like minded.
14:45
Lisa Nichols: You said you really hadn't dated anybody that was that, I guess,
14:50
Lisa Nichols: confident that that's what they wanted to do with their lives.
14:52
Lisa Nichols: So that's so cool.
14:53
Lisa Nichols: And, of course, you know, I think this is why you and I connected
14:57
Lisa Nichols: so much because Greg and I were the same way.
14:58
Lisa Nichols: You know, we dated and said even in high school when we were dating,
15:01
Lisa Nichols: hey.
15:02
Lisa Nichols: What would it look like if we could build a company and that company
15:05
Lisa Nichols: could do well, and then we could do a lot of good in the
15:07
Lisa Nichols: world?
15:07
Lisa Nichols: You know, that was kind of our mindset, and, we started our company together
15:11
Lisa Nichols: in nineteen ninety four.
15:13
Lisa Nichols: So you guys started in nineteen ninety six.
15:15
Lisa Nichols: Tell our listeners about webMethods.
15:17
Lisa Nichols: What did you guys do?
15:18
Lisa Nichols: What were you hoping to accomplish in the world?
15:21
Caren Merrick: Oh, well, thank you.
15:22
Caren Merrick: So, yes, you're right.
15:23
Caren Merrick: On our first date, we talked about starting a company.
15:26
Caren Merrick: I was on my path to becoming an entrepreneur, which is an a story
15:29
Caren Merrick: in and of itself.
15:31
Caren Merrick: And and so life to
15:36
Caren Merrick: first date, I thought, oh my gosh.
15:38
Caren Merrick: This man also wants to start a business.
15:40
Caren Merrick: I've never heard that before, and that's why I kinda like to float the
15:43
Caren Merrick: idea as a little qualifier, if you will.
15:46
Caren Merrick: And then seven months after that first date, we were engaged.
15:49
Caren Merrick: Four months later, we were married.
15:52
Caren Merrick: And so on the anniversary of our first date, we we were married.
15:56
Caren Merrick: And then about a year after we got got married, we had been
16:00
Caren Merrick: talking about, you know, starting a business, and I had started a business.
16:04
Caren Merrick: I had started the business that I was already on my way to starting
16:07
Caren Merrick: when we first stated, which was a market research and marketing and communications
16:11
Caren Merrick: company.
16:12
Caren Merrick: And America Online was my first client, and things were going well.
16:16
Caren Merrick: And then we found out that his mom had a terminal illness, and he's
16:20
Caren Merrick: from Australia.
16:22
Caren Merrick: And so
16:23
Caren Merrick: we knew
16:25
Caren Merrick: that we needed to go spend time with her because we knew her that
16:28
Caren Merrick: her days were even more numbered than most of us know.
16:31
Caren Merrick: It's actually a blessing if you have if you know in advance.
16:34
Caren Merrick: Oh, yeah.
16:35
Caren Merrick: Right?
16:35
Caren Merrick: And so we moved to Australia, and we both end up working at the
16:39
Caren Merrick: same software company.
16:41
Caren Merrick: As I was director of marketing, he was the VP of engineering.
16:44
Caren Merrick: And then his mom went into remission.
16:46
Caren Merrick: And so we were only there for a year and a half, and we
16:49
Caren Merrick: and his mom ended up living for four more years, which was wonderful.
16:53
Caren Merrick: We had four more years.
16:55
Caren Merrick: And then while we were in Australia, some important
16:59
Caren Merrick: things were happening on the Internet.
17:01
Caren Merrick: It was really exploding.
17:03
Caren Merrick: And so we had we talked about this, and my husband had this
17:07
Caren Merrick: idea about how to use the Internet as a platform
17:11
Caren Merrick: to integrate huge supply chain systems and
17:15
Caren Merrick: huge internal systems, huge IT systems, Lisa, which you
17:19
Caren Merrick: would understand.
17:20
Caren Merrick: Before that time, they were so siloed.
17:24
Caren Merrick: All of these finance was siloed from from HR.
17:27
Caren Merrick: Job.
17:27
Caren Merrick: Was siloed from manufacturing, was siloed from everything else.
17:31
Caren Merrick: And so my husband invented a way, and he patented it to use the
17:35
Caren Merrick: Internet to do that.
17:37
Caren Merrick: So I made the first, so I started looking for investors.
17:40
Caren Merrick: I made the first friends and family call for investors to my father, and
17:44
Caren Merrick: he immediately invested.
17:46
Caren Merrick: And then we set about just going throughout our friends and family, former bosses
17:49
Caren Merrick: and whatnot.
17:50
Caren Merrick: And we had enough money, and we felt confident.
17:53
Caren Merrick: So we came back, and then we came back to the United States to
17:56
Caren Merrick: Virginia, which is a very great place to start a business as I can
18:00
Caren Merrick: tell now, especially after being the secretary of commerce and trade here.
18:04
Caren Merrick: And so what ended up happening is we bootstrapped that company, and
18:08
Caren Merrick: we did what a lot of companies do, which is we we built a
18:12
Caren Merrick: we built a a smaller version of the product.
18:14
Caren Merrick: We got a couple of early customers,
18:17
Caren Merrick: and then we needed money to continue to expand and grow.
18:21
Caren Merrick: And we went across this entire country looking for venture funding, and
18:25
Caren Merrick: we were rejected.
18:26
Caren Merrick: And so we were reaching this cliff of death, running out of money, credit
18:30
Caren Merrick: cards are maxed out, and we needed
18:34
Caren Merrick: to we we we were about ready to shut down when
18:38
Caren Merrick: there was an an amazing venture fund from Virginia
18:43
Caren Merrick: who invested two million dollars into our company.
18:46
Caren Merrick: And so from there, we did hire the engineers that we needed.
18:49
Caren Merrick: Yes.
18:49
Caren Merrick: We made our product even better.
18:51
Caren Merrick: We hired more sales reps, customer service reps, more marketing
18:55
Caren Merrick: people.
18:57
Caren Merrick: And then Goldman Sachs wanted to invest, and then Michael
19:01
Caren Merrick: Dell wanted to invest, and then we ended up having
19:05
Caren Merrick: a bidding war, if you will, between Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs
19:09
Caren Merrick: as to which bank would take us public.
19:12
Caren Merrick: And in the end, it was Morgan Stanley.
19:13
Caren Merrick: And on the day of our IPO, it was the most successful software IPO
19:17
Caren Merrick: in history.
19:19
Caren Merrick: And that's because we had a shipping product.
19:22
Caren Merrick: We had customers when when when when it would we were b two
19:26
Caren Merrick: b before it was cool.
19:27
Caren Merrick: Mhmm.
19:28
Lisa Nichols: That is so awesome.
19:29
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
19:30
Lisa Nichols: I think I read, like, your your, price per share was, like, thirteen
19:34
Lisa Nichols: dollars, but then at the end of the first day when you went IPO,
19:37
Lisa Nichols: it was three hundred dollars a share.
19:40
Caren Merrick: Yes.
19:40
Caren Merrick: That's really That was so wonderful.
19:43
Caren Merrick: So many people were so many people and companies,
19:47
Caren Merrick: and families and investors prospered, and we were grateful because when we took
19:52
Caren Merrick: my father's first investment, I said to my husband, we've and we both
19:56
Caren Merrick: said and then my brother invest we we said, my father and my brother
19:59
Caren Merrick: have invested.
20:00
Caren Merrick: We can't lose their money, or else it's gonna be really hard at Thanksgiving.
20:04
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
20:04
Lisa Nichols: Exactly.
20:05
Lisa Nichols: Very awkward.
20:06
Lisa Nichols: Very awkward at Thanksgiving.
20:07
Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
20:08
Lisa Nichols: Well, well, I, you know, I I we've been there too.
20:12
Lisa Nichols: I mean, here, and we bootstrapped our company, you know, to start with.
20:15
Lisa Nichols: I mean, we got a thirty thousand dollar home equity loan because these people,
20:19
Lisa Nichols: you know, that we place are very highly paid.
20:22
Lisa Nichols: Right?
20:23
Lisa Nichols: And the last thing Greg and I wanted to do is for people to
20:26
Lisa Nichols: be calling going, okay.
20:27
Lisa Nichols: When am I gonna get paid?
20:28
Lisa Nichols: You know, we wanted a a regular sequence, you know, that they're gonna be
20:32
Lisa Nichols: paid biweekly and come hell or high water.
20:36
Lisa Nichols: You know, we were gonna make sure that our people were paid.
20:38
Lisa Nichols: And so, yeah, I mean, it's, but, you know, the thing is
20:42
Lisa Nichols: and it sounds like you guys did the same thing.
20:45
Lisa Nichols: I mean, we, you know, maybe if we'd taken on some
20:49
Lisa Nichols: venture funding, we could have grown faster, but we were just slow and steady.
20:52
Lisa Nichols: And we were just, you know, making sure that, you know, our cash flow
20:56
Lisa Nichols: was good, watching that, and, you know, because sometimes I see
21:00
Lisa Nichols: companies fail because they take on too much too soon.
21:04
Caren Merrick: Oh, Lisa.
21:04
Lisa Nichols: And your overhead can kill you.
21:07
Caren Merrick: That's right.
21:07
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
21:08
Caren Merrick: Will kill you.
21:09
Caren Merrick: And and I will say that one of the observations that I've made is
21:13
Caren Merrick: that there were a lot of other companies that eventually got into
21:17
Caren Merrick: the same space as us that got millions and millions of dollars
21:21
Caren Merrick: of venture capital, but that sometimes money covers a multitude
21:25
Caren Merrick: of bad decisions.
21:27
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
21:27
Caren Merrick: And and this idea of losing your focus
21:31
Caren Merrick: on what you're supposed to be doing, and then it's just not as noticeable
21:35
Caren Merrick: when you've got a a lot of money in the bank.
21:38
Caren Merrick: Whereas with us, we didn't.
21:39
Caren Merrick: And so we had we had to it it drove
21:43
Caren Merrick: ingenuity and innovation, I believe.
21:46
Caren Merrick: Mhmm.
21:46
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
21:47
Lisa Nichols: No.
21:47
Lisa Nichols: I could not agree more.
21:49
Lisa Nichols: Well, you know, talk about then I want you just to touch on webMethods,
21:54
Lisa Nichols: the foundation, that you became, I guess, the CEO
21:58
Lisa Nichols: of.
21:58
Lisa Nichols: I mean, talk about webMethods because I know the foundation because I think you
22:02
Lisa Nichols: were teaching your people even how to write grants
22:06
Lisa Nichols: in that and how to yeah.
22:09
Lisa Nichols: Which was really amazing.
22:10
Caren Merrick: Well, it's so funny because when we were what what's interesting to me is
22:13
Caren Merrick: getting back to what I said about my drive.
22:16
Caren Merrick: It must be a a a gift from the good lord because I could
22:20
Caren Merrick: never feel happy knowing that that I was prospering if I didn't
22:24
Caren Merrick: know that other people could prosper too.
22:26
Caren Merrick: And when we were thinking about starting this business, we would take these long
22:30
Caren Merrick: walks on the beach in Australia, and we would pray.
22:33
Caren Merrick: And we said, if this company is successful, we're going all in on the
22:37
Caren Merrick: communities where where we are because it's not enough for our company
22:41
Caren Merrick: to prosper.
22:42
Caren Merrick: Our company is going to be in a physical location or locations, and
22:46
Caren Merrick: we really want to
22:48
Caren Merrick: invest.
22:48
Caren Merrick: Now, Lisa, we both come from very modest families, working class families.
22:52
Caren Merrick: My husband's the first person in his family to get a college degree.
22:56
Caren Merrick: I'm the first woman.
22:57
Caren Merrick: We had no concept for philanthropy or any of this, but we
23:01
Caren Merrick: just knew that we would have a role to fulfill, that we would have
23:04
Caren Merrick: a responsibility.
23:06
Caren Merrick: And so what happened was on the day we went public, my husband and
23:10
Caren Merrick: I looked at each other, and there were obviously a lot of things going
23:14
Caren Merrick: through our minds, but we said we're we need to act on this on
23:17
Caren Merrick: this.
23:18
Caren Merrick: And so we immediately set aside, the the ten percent tide of
23:22
Caren Merrick: our own shares, and then some of our board members set aside some shares.
23:26
Caren Merrick: And we started the a private foundation, but we named it after
23:30
Caren Merrick: the company.
23:31
Caren Merrick: And then we looked around because we did not know how to run a
23:34
Caren Merrick: foundation.
23:35
Caren Merrick: We did not know much at all about philanthropy.
23:38
Caren Merrick: And so I looked for who was best in class in our region, and
23:41
Caren Merrick: they mentored us.
23:42
Caren Merrick: And I did interviews, and they came in and, talked to us about it.
23:46
Caren Merrick: And then we also then had our we left
23:51
Caren Merrick: it open to our employees.
23:52
Caren Merrick: We said, does anybody wanna volunteer and be on a grant team?
23:55
Caren Merrick: And a lot of people did volunteer to be on grant teams.
23:59
Caren Merrick: So we had a variety of different organizations come in and teach
24:03
Caren Merrick: us what the economic conditions were in in our regions,
24:07
Caren Merrick: who would come in and teach us about the world of nonprofits, came in
24:11
Caren Merrick: and teach us about they came in and taught us about
24:15
Caren Merrick: how to make grants.
24:17
Caren Merrick: And what we decided was we formed a board.
24:19
Caren Merrick: I was president and chairman of the board.
24:21
Caren Merrick: We hired a full time executive director.
24:23
Caren Merrick: We had four members on that team of the foundation.
24:26
Caren Merrick: And we we decided that we wanted to make grants in areas
24:30
Caren Merrick: that were essential for nonprofits,
24:33
Caren Merrick: but that were not always made.
24:36
Caren Merrick: So we would do the infrastructure.
24:37
Caren Merrick: We were an infrastructure company.
24:39
Caren Merrick: We felt like software infrastructure.
24:41
Caren Merrick: So we would help we would help nonprofits with their
24:45
Caren Merrick: IT systems or their accounting systems or some professional development.
24:49
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
24:50
Caren Merrick: And and what we really wanted to do, Lisa, is help people
24:54
Caren Merrick: achieve their potential through education.
24:56
Caren Merrick: So we supported a lot of education nonprofits because our experience,
25:01
Caren Merrick: our personal experience had been that education changed everything.
25:06
Lisa Nichols: Right.
25:06
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
25:07
Lisa Nichols: Oh, I love I love that you did that.
25:10
Lisa Nichols: Well, gosh, Karen, we got lots and lots and lots more to talk about,
25:14
Lisa Nichols: but we do need to take a quick break, and we'll be right back
25:16
Lisa Nichols: with my friend Karen Merrick on the Something Extra podcast.
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25:50
Lisa Nichols: Welcome back, everyone, to the Something Extra podcast with Karen
25:54
Lisa Nichols: Merrick.
25:54
Lisa Nichols: Oh my goodness.
25:55
Lisa Nichols: So much to this woman.
25:57
Lisa Nichols: So much to this woman.
25:59
Lisa Nichols: In from twenty twenty two to twenty five, Karen,
26:04
Lisa Nichols: you served as Virginia's secretary of commerce and trade, under governor
26:08
Lisa Nichols: Youngkin.
26:09
Lisa Nichols: And I'm just gonna read a few of these things because I know you
26:12
Lisa Nichols: wouldn't say these about yourself.
26:13
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, she managed a budget of three billion dollars,
26:17
Lisa Nichols: thirteen different agencies.
26:20
Lisa Nichols: When you left, you had raised a hundred and forty billion in new
26:24
Lisa Nichols: capital investment across key sectors, data centers, energy,
26:28
Lisa Nichols: advanced manufacturing.
26:30
Lisa Nichols: Fifteen thousand plus high wage, high growth startups were
26:34
Lisa Nichols: launched.
26:35
Lisa Nichols: Remarkable.
26:36
Lisa Nichols: C n CNBC recognized, Virginia as America's
26:41
Lisa Nichols: top state for business.
26:42
Lisa Nichols: That was in twenty twenty four.
26:44
Lisa Nichols: I mean, you guys had new trade office in Taiwan.
26:46
Lisa Nichols: You accomplished a lot, Karen.
26:50
Lisa Nichols: What was that like for you?
26:54
Caren Merrick: Well,
26:56
Caren Merrick: what is amazing to me is the team.
26:59
Caren Merrick: Starting with the governor, he's a businessman.
27:01
Caren Merrick: He is so good at building teams, and I have been his friend, and
27:05
Caren Merrick: I've done work with him over the years.
27:09
Caren Merrick: And being able to work up close with him as a partner in his
27:13
Caren Merrick: vision for Virginia was remarkable.
27:16
Caren Merrick: And it and and I really did
27:20
Caren Merrick: love our our his vision and our mission.
27:23
Caren Merrick: And it's interesting, though, coming out of the private sector.
27:26
Caren Merrick: Yes.
27:26
Caren Merrick: The governor had just come out of the private sector.
27:30
Caren Merrick: For him, it was his first gover government job.
27:32
Caren Merrick: It was my first government job.
27:34
Caren Merrick: And I would say about half of the cabinet came from the business sector,
27:37
Caren Merrick: and it was our first government job.
27:39
Caren Merrick: And so we had to rely on people who had been there before us
27:43
Caren Merrick: and would be there after us, like the all of, you know, the agency,
27:46
Caren Merrick: the the teams there.
27:48
Caren Merrick: But I will say that after, the first couple of months, it's pretty
27:52
Caren Merrick: intense.
27:52
Caren Merrick: I mean, I moved to Richmond a month before inauguration,
27:57
Caren Merrick: and and we had a lot of transformation that we wanted to do.
28:01
Caren Merrick: And we also know that in Virginia, the governor is limited to
28:05
Caren Merrick: one term, one four year term.
28:07
Caren Merrick: So we wanted to get eight years worth of work Work and
28:11
Caren Merrick: achievements.
28:13
Caren Merrick: And progress and transformation done in four years.
28:16
Caren Merrick: But I but after the first couple of months, it was it was so
28:19
Caren Merrick: fascinating and I I sat back one day and I said, what is this
28:23
Caren Merrick: like?
28:24
Caren Merrick: What is this like?
28:25
Caren Merrick: It's it's not exactly like anything I've ever done.
28:28
Caren Merrick: And I realized, Lisa, it was like three things.
28:32
Caren Merrick: It was like working for a start up, a merger,
28:36
Caren Merrick: and a turnaround all at the same time.
28:39
Caren Merrick: And once I had that framework, I thought, okay.
28:43
Caren Merrick: Now I know what to do.
28:45
Caren Merrick: Now I know what to do with the folks that the the start up
28:48
Caren Merrick: folks.
28:48
Caren Merrick: It was like the new political appointees.
28:51
Caren Merrick: We were the start up team.
28:52
Caren Merrick: We had never worked together before.
28:53
Caren Merrick: I had worked with the governor, but none none of us had worked together
28:56
Caren Merrick: before.
28:57
Caren Merrick: So I employed some of those those start up.
28:59
Caren Merrick: The merger part, you know, we came into a
29:04
Caren Merrick: a lot of, you know, tens of thousands of people who are employed by
29:07
Caren Merrick: the state of Virginia, who love the commonwealth, who are mission driven
29:11
Caren Merrick: people.
29:12
Caren Merrick: And we were a merger because we were coming in, you know, several hundred
29:16
Caren Merrick: of us, and we were starting to lead.
29:19
Caren Merrick: Mhmm.
29:19
Caren Merrick: And then the turnaround is what every governor wants to do.
29:22
Caren Merrick: Every governor has a vision of of what they think they need to do
29:27
Caren Merrick: to be better.
29:28
Caren Merrick: And the governor appointed a cabinet to help him, not
29:32
Caren Merrick: only to help him shape his vision, but to implement his vision
29:36
Caren Merrick: and to lead.
29:38
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
29:40
Lisa Nichols: Well, fifteen thousand startups
29:44
Lisa Nichols: in that period of time, Karen, is just really remarkable.
29:48
Lisa Nichols: But I know that that's your heart too.
29:50
Lisa Nichols: I mean, you started by saying, I want to invest.
29:54
Lisa Nichols: I wanna see people.
29:55
Lisa Nichols: I wanna see organizations.
29:56
Lisa Nichols: If I can help them flourish and grow
29:59
Caren Merrick: Yes.
30:00
Lisa Nichols: That's what is life giving to you.
30:02
Caren Merrick: It is true.
30:03
Caren Merrick: And and and the other for me, it was such a tremendous honor
30:08
Caren Merrick: to have this opportunity because I had been an entrepreneur.
30:12
Caren Merrick: I have started businesses, multiple businesses.
30:15
Caren Merrick: I have had to write that paycheck.
30:17
Caren Merrick: I have had to do what you and your husband, Greg, have had to
30:20
Caren Merrick: do.
30:20
Caren Merrick: I've had to make personal sacrifices in order to make payroll.
30:23
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
30:24
Caren Merrick: And I've had to listen to my customers, and I've had to pivot, and
30:27
Caren Merrick: I've had to learn from failure and and and and those things.
30:31
Caren Merrick: What I realized, and and I started a foundation and and
30:35
Caren Merrick: helped to set that up, but that was another startup.
30:38
Caren Merrick: But what I realized is that whether it's in the private sector, in a
30:42
Caren Merrick: startup, in the nonprofit sector, and then in government,
30:46
Caren Merrick: there is a framework that you need that that
30:50
Caren Merrick: if you use, you will flourish, your team will flourish, and your
30:54
Caren Merrick: organization will flourish.
30:55
Caren Merrick: And and and it's that framework that really matters.
30:59
Caren Merrick: And I believe that we we collaboratively
31:03
Caren Merrick: developed a framework there in the state government that we hope
31:07
Caren Merrick: will last now that we are at you know, the end of the term
31:12
Caren Merrick: is just weeks away.
31:13
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
31:14
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
31:14
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
31:15
Lisa Nichols: So let me ask you this because I know we had said before education
31:19
Lisa Nichols: is really important to you and Philip.
31:20
Lisa Nichols: I mean, that's you were investing in that through your foundation.
31:24
Lisa Nichols: Were you setting up boot camps for these startups?
31:28
Lisa Nichols: Did you have some sort of education that you're providing to them, Karen,
31:32
Lisa Nichols: during this time?
31:33
Lisa Nichols: I mean, there may have been a a an initiative, you know, from the
31:37
Lisa Nichols: governor's office to
31:38
Caren Merrick: Yes.
31:39
Caren Merrick: Yes.
31:39
Caren Merrick: And so and so in the state government, it's fascinating because you
31:43
Caren Merrick: have agencies that can
31:47
Caren Merrick: that by their design access federal funding.
31:51
Caren Merrick: And so of my thirteen agencies, the premier agency
31:55
Caren Merrick: that is engaged in the start up ecosystem is called the Virginia Innovation
31:59
Caren Merrick: Partnership Corporation.
32:01
Caren Merrick: And there was there were hundreds of millions of dollars that were coming
32:05
Caren Merrick: down the pipeline unlike at any other time in Virginia's
32:09
Caren Merrick: history that every state was getting this this pipeline of funding.
32:14
Caren Merrick: And so what we did is we channeled this funding
32:18
Caren Merrick: into partnerships
32:20
Caren Merrick: with organizations that do seed funding, that do boot camps,
32:24
Caren Merrick: that do there's a whole ecosystem of mostly
32:29
Caren Merrick: nonprofits that will help entrepreneurs.
32:32
Caren Merrick: And so we partnered with them because every every good strategy
32:36
Caren Merrick: requires good partners.
32:38
Caren Merrick: Right?
32:38
Caren Merrick: Yes.
32:38
Caren Merrick: And so and we needed those partners because we didn't have the team in
32:42
Caren Merrick: the administration and at the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation.
32:46
Caren Merrick: What ended up happening, though, is in my role, I
32:50
Caren Merrick: was able to I was vice chair of this organization for nearly four years,
32:55
Caren Merrick: and so I was able to work very closely with the CEO
32:59
Caren Merrick: to to come up with a strategy and align that strategy with the governor's
33:03
Caren Merrick: vision, with my mission, and also with the opportunities that existed in Virginia.
33:08
Caren Merrick: And that was part of the fifteen thousand start ups.
33:11
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
33:12
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's so good.
33:13
Lisa Nichols: Well and as a tech as an entrepreneur starting out, you've
33:17
Lisa Nichols: got to have somebody like you, Karen, that's helping you
33:21
Lisa Nichols: navigate the system and find out who are those partners out
33:26
Lisa Nichols: there that you can collaborate with.
33:27
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
33:28
Lisa Nichols: Exactly.
33:28
Lisa Nichols: You know,
33:28
Caren Merrick: because Yeah.
33:29
Lisa Nichols: The training that you need.
33:30
Lisa Nichols: And sometimes, I think that's that's kinda where there's a gap because
33:35
Lisa Nichols: the the entrepreneur doesn't really even know where to go.
33:38
Lisa Nichols: So I love I love that you guys had it, structured that way.
33:42
Lisa Nichols: And, yeah, that's I mean, I'm sure that's why you guys,
33:47
Lisa Nichols: you know, won won America's top state for doing business, you
33:51
Lisa Nichols: know, in twenty twenty four, which is amazing.
33:54
Lisa Nichols: Well, let's talk about this because I know this is something you're very excited
33:57
Lisa Nichols: about, and I'm very excited for you.
34:00
Lisa Nichols: You got an upcoming book, and it's titled The Power of
34:04
Lisa Nichols: Insight.
34:05
Lisa Nichols: You know, how do you define insight, Karen?
34:07
Lisa Nichols: I would be very curious,
34:09
Lisa Nichols: to to hear your definition, and why
34:11
Caren Merrick: do you think it's so rare?
34:13
Caren Merrick: You know, insight is
34:17
Caren Merrick: that
34:19
Caren Merrick: it's it's an insight is it's like it's an intuition,
34:24
Caren Merrick: but it's really clarity.
34:27
Caren Merrick: Insight is clarity.
34:29
Caren Merrick: It's not a moment of brilliance.
34:30
Caren Merrick: It's something it's a discipline.
34:32
Caren Merrick: It's something to be cultivated.
34:34
Caren Merrick: And it's clarity whether you on something that could be an
34:38
Caren Merrick: opportunity, recognizing an opportunity, or it could be
34:42
Caren Merrick: clarity on solving a problem.
34:45
Caren Merrick: And it might be a problem that you're having with a team member.
34:48
Caren Merrick: It might be a problem you're having with your business growth.
34:51
Caren Merrick: It might be something unforeseen that happens to us every day.
34:55
Caren Merrick: And And the reason that I believe insight is so important is because insights
34:58
Caren Merrick: are all around us, Lisa, but sometimes we miss them.
35:01
Caren Merrick: Yes.
35:02
Caren Merrick: We miss them for a variety of reasons, and we don't need to be
35:05
Caren Merrick: missing them.
35:06
Caren Merrick: I believe it's just this discipline of learning how to cultivate,
35:11
Caren Merrick: recognize, capture, and apply insights.
35:13
Caren Merrick: And so I'm developing a framework for that.
35:16
Lisa Nichols: That is wonderful.
35:17
Lisa Nichols: Why do you think we miss them?
35:18
Lisa Nichols: I think sometimes we're just moving too fast Yes.
35:21
Lisa Nichols: Karen, and we don't take the time.
35:23
Lisa Nichols: Like, you took the time to sit in your office and going, what what
35:27
Lisa Nichols: is this like?
35:28
Lisa Nichols: Now what what am I really doing?
35:30
Lisa Nichols: You know?
35:30
Lisa Nichols: And that's when you came up with, well, it's a merger.
35:33
Lisa Nichols: It's a, you know, turnaround.
35:35
Lisa Nichols: I mean Yeah.
35:36
Lisa Nichols: Sometimes we don't take the time to really just spend time thinking.
35:40
Caren Merrick: Lisa, it's it's it's the time.
35:43
Caren Merrick: It's the power of the pause.
35:45
Caren Merrick: It's asking questions.
35:47
Caren Merrick: I do believe the first and most important
35:52
Caren Merrick: part of of cultivating the discipline of insights, of of
35:56
Caren Merrick: capturing an insight is self awareness and self understanding.
36:00
Caren Merrick: That famous that famous analogy of putting the oxygen mask mask
36:04
Caren Merrick: on first when you're on a plane.
36:06
Caren Merrick: Yes.
36:07
Caren Merrick: Because when you understand yourself,
36:10
Caren Merrick: then you then you are coming from a a position of much greater
36:14
Caren Merrick: strength, and you're also recognizing,
36:18
Caren Merrick: do you do you have a bias?
36:21
Caren Merrick: You know, really knowing yourself.
36:22
Caren Merrick: And and something that fascinates me is that, you know, a lot of great
36:25
Caren Merrick: leaders do assessments.
36:27
Caren Merrick: They do, you know, they'll do cliff, CliftonStrengths, which I'm a big believer
36:31
Caren Merrick: in that, or the disc, or there's any number of assessments.
36:35
Caren Merrick: But I believe that it's more than that.
36:37
Caren Merrick: And I I recently spoke at, Harvard the har Harvard
36:41
Caren Merrick: University has a the flourishing summit, and I was grateful to be invited
36:46
Caren Merrick: to speak there.
36:47
Caren Merrick: And I spoke on self awareness as essential to leadership.
36:52
Caren Merrick: And part of that has to do with I don't think we spend
36:56
Caren Merrick: enough time thinking about
36:59
Caren Merrick: our own biases.
37:02
Caren Merrick: For example, when I was, I I know I knew this going into
37:06
Caren Merrick: this job as a secretary that I am allergic to bureaucracy, Lisa.
37:10
Caren Merrick: I don't like bureaucracy, and yet I was going straight into it.
37:13
Caren Merrick: Into it.
37:15
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
37:15
Caren Merrick: And sometimes I would I would sense this coming in myself when I'm where
37:19
Caren Merrick: I was speaking to someone who wanted something from the government.
37:22
Caren Merrick: And I had to really pause and say, you know, tamp this
37:27
Caren Merrick: tamp this down.
37:28
Caren Merrick: Pause.
37:29
Caren Merrick: You're alerted to bureaucracy, and so you're just not listening or you're
37:34
Caren Merrick: or you're maybe not as empathetic as as you as you could be right
37:37
Caren Merrick: now.
37:37
Caren Merrick: That's one example.
37:38
Caren Merrick: But, also, I've come to realize that all my strengths have a shadow
37:42
Caren Merrick: side.
37:43
Caren Merrick: And I see this all the time.
37:45
Caren Merrick: I see this in leaders that are above me.
37:47
Caren Merrick: I see this in my peers.
37:48
Caren Merrick: For example, when you think about when you're really competent,
37:53
Caren Merrick: the shadow side is you can become arrogant or dismissive.
37:57
Caren Merrick: If you're a visionary, you might be impatient or undervalue
38:01
Caren Merrick: execution.
38:02
Caren Merrick: When you are optimistic, you might avoid things
38:07
Caren Merrick: or or over prime or overpromise.
38:09
Caren Merrick: And so when I think of self awareness, I I think of it
38:13
Caren Merrick: like that.
38:13
Caren Merrick: And I also think of it and this is something that it really challenges
38:17
Caren Merrick: me, which is when you think about a week that you've had that was
38:21
Caren Merrick: a tough week or a big week, one question that really
38:25
Caren Merrick: causes me to stop at my steps is what what is it like to
38:29
Caren Merrick: be on the other side of me?
38:31
Caren Merrick: What would it like to be on the other side of me this week?
38:34
Caren Merrick: And I would I would ask my team when I did my weekly one
38:38
Caren Merrick: on ones.
38:39
Caren Merrick: I would say to them, is there anything I could be doing more of
38:43
Caren Merrick: or less of for you to succeed?
38:46
Caren Merrick: And so that's part of self awareness.
38:48
Caren Merrick: It's it's it's bringing other people in.
38:50
Caren Merrick: And by the way, not every direct report even has the confidence to
38:54
Caren Merrick: answer that, honestly.
38:56
Lisa Nichols: Right.
38:57
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
38:57
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
38:58
Lisa Nichols: I mean but you need those people in your life that will speak truth.
39:02
Lisa Nichols: You do.
39:03
Lisa Nichols: But I know I Karen, I love that you said that because I have
39:07
Lisa Nichols: said that so many times.
39:09
Lisa Nichols: I love that question.
39:12
Lisa Nichols: And this can be not just in business.
39:14
Lisa Nichols: This can be with your family.
39:16
Caren Merrick: Mhmm.
39:16
Caren Merrick: But I'd
39:16
Lisa Nichols: like to be on the other side of me.
39:19
Lisa Nichols: And I just think that's a really good question for us to ask ourselves
39:23
Lisa Nichols: constantly, you know, because, if we answer that honestly,
39:28
Lisa Nichols: you know, there's sometimes where, you know, it's, boy, I come across too
39:32
Lisa Nichols: harsh.
39:33
Lisa Nichols: Or
39:35
Caren Merrick: I I agree.
39:36
Caren Merrick: You know, there's another one that I, there's another two that I wanna share
39:40
Caren Merrick: with you.
39:40
Caren Merrick: One of them is,
39:42
Caren Merrick: what do your team members know you care about most?
39:47
Caren Merrick: And then the other one is, what feedback do you most resist and why?
39:52
Caren Merrick: That's the hardest one for me.
39:53
Lisa Nichols: That that I know.
39:55
Lisa Nichols: I know.
39:56
Lisa Nichols: And I say it all the time.
39:57
Lisa Nichols: Feedback is a gift.
39:59
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, it's not always easy to receive it.
40:02
Lisa Nichols: Right?
40:04
Lisa Nichols: But goodness, we need to.
40:06
Lisa Nichols: How are we gonna do better if we don't know better?
40:08
Lisa Nichols: Right, Karen?
40:09
Lisa Nichols: So
40:10
Caren Merrick: Exactly.
40:10
Caren Merrick: Exactly.
40:11
Caren Merrick: So when you're thinking about, you know, how do you cultivate an an an
40:15
Caren Merrick: insight or recognize an insight, part of it is just doing your own little
40:18
Caren Merrick: inventory and saying, is this an insight coming or, you know,
40:23
Caren Merrick: or am I resisting it?
40:24
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
40:25
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
40:26
Lisa Nichols: Or
40:26
Caren Merrick: am I making something up just because it makes me feel better?
40:29
Lisa Nichols: Right.
40:30
Lisa Nichols: No.
40:30
Lisa Nichols: That's good.
40:31
Lisa Nichols: That is good.
40:32
Lisa Nichols: Well, you know and I just right now and, you know, I've talked a
40:36
Lisa Nichols: lot about data.
40:37
Lisa Nichols: Right?
40:37
Lisa Nichols: So we do a lot in the data space.
40:41
Lisa Nichols: Sometimes, I feel like and, I mean, organizations can be drowning
40:45
Lisa Nichols: in data.
40:45
Lisa Nichols: People can be drowning in data.
40:48
Lisa Nichols: There's so much coming at us all the time, Karen.
40:51
Lisa Nichols: I I will never forget this.
40:53
Lisa Nichols: Somebody that you and I both know and love, Sheryl Batchelder.
40:57
Lisa Nichols: I'll never forget her saying one time, sometimes you don't need
41:01
Lisa Nichols: more input.
41:02
Lisa Nichols: You just need to act on what you already know.
41:05
Caren Merrick: I love that insight.
41:06
Caren Merrick: Is it isn't that gold?
41:08
Lisa Nichols: I know.
41:09
Lisa Nichols: See if you can quote her in your book.
41:11
Caren Merrick: I'm gonna I'm just gonna interview her, I think.
41:13
Caren Merrick: I think.
41:13
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
41:14
Lisa Nichols: Here you go.
41:15
Lisa Nichols: Sometimes you don't need more input.
41:17
Lisa Nichols: You just want you need to act on what you already know.
41:20
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, there's so much stuff coming to us all the time.
41:24
Lisa Nichols: How do you, you know, advise
41:28
Lisa Nichols: leaders to choose wisely?
41:30
Lisa Nichols: Because, I mean, I know for us, like, in our business even,
41:35
Lisa Nichols: oh, we could be doing this over here.
41:36
Lisa Nichols: We could be doing that.
41:37
Lisa Nichols: You know, I think that's another trap that sometimes, leaders and
41:41
Lisa Nichols: entrepreneurs can fall into, trying to be all things to all people.
41:45
Lisa Nichols: And we know that if that's the if that's your
41:49
Lisa Nichols: reality, you know, there's gonna be a dilution
41:52
Caren Merrick: there Yeah.
41:53
Caren Merrick: Where you're not gonna do
41:54
Lisa Nichols: anything well.
41:54
Lisa Nichols: But how do you advise leaders to to choose wisely?
42:00
Caren Merrick: Lisa, what you've described about yourself is
42:04
Caren Merrick: a it's a positive that you're mission driven, purpose driven,
42:09
Caren Merrick: generous.
42:10
Caren Merrick: You want people to flourish, and you want your customers to flourish.
42:14
Caren Merrick: And
42:17
Caren Merrick: most leaders should aspire to that if they don't already, and most of the
42:21
Caren Merrick: leaders I know, they they do.
42:23
Caren Merrick: Right.
42:24
Caren Merrick: And recognizing that and accepting that about ourselves is, like,
42:28
Caren Merrick: getting back to my first point about self awareness, that matters.
42:32
Caren Merrick: What I've also discovered is that and one of the first
42:37
Caren Merrick: exercises I did with all of the agency heads is ask a very
42:41
Caren Merrick: simple essential question, which is,
42:45
Caren Merrick: who is our customer?
42:47
Caren Merrick: Who is our customer?
42:49
Caren Merrick: Who are we serving?
42:51
Caren Merrick: Or who are our customers?
42:52
Caren Merrick: We may have different types of customers.
42:55
Caren Merrick: We also need to understand if we have a hierarchy of customers where there's
42:58
Caren Merrick: some that have a different sort of priority.
43:01
Caren Merrick: Mhmm.
43:01
Caren Merrick: But who is our customer?
43:04
Caren Merrick: There were so many agencies
43:06
Caren Merrick: that couldn't clear answer that with clarity.
43:10
Caren Merrick: And what happens or start ups saying Yes.
43:14
Caren Merrick: Yes.
43:15
Caren Merrick: Or or, you know, startups, nonprofits, government agencies.
43:20
Caren Merrick: And this is because often mission driven people do have scope creep because
43:24
Caren Merrick: they don't wanna say no to anybody.
43:26
Caren Merrick: Right.
43:27
Caren Merrick: And Yes.
43:28
Caren Merrick: And people who are in public service like the state government, they're there to
43:31
Caren Merrick: serve.
43:32
Caren Merrick: And yet if you cannot define that, then you are
43:36
Caren Merrick: going to have duplication of effort.
43:38
Caren Merrick: You're gonna have a bunch of subscale initiatives, which which I discovered.
43:42
Caren Merrick: I discovered that different agencies had similar programs that were not within
43:46
Caren Merrick: their scope or their mission, but they just wanted to
43:50
Caren Merrick: help.
43:51
Caren Merrick: But that doesn't help if you're not spending your resources
43:55
Caren Merrick: wisely.
43:55
Caren Merrick: So the first question is, who's my customer?
43:57
Caren Merrick: And the second one is, what problem are we solving for our customers?
44:01
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
44:02
Caren Merrick: Really important to know this.
44:03
Caren Merrick: And back in the day with WebMethance, we were doing this this
44:09
Caren Merrick: software solution for enterprise software for global
44:13
Caren Merrick: two thousand companies, and yet there were a lot of little dot coms
44:17
Caren Merrick: coming around that wanted to use our software.
44:21
Caren Merrick: And we said, we have to say no to this customer
44:25
Caren Merrick: because that's not the kind of customer that's going to build this business.
44:28
Caren Merrick: It's not our what we do best.
44:31
Caren Merrick: It's it's revenue, but it's not the kind of business that we want
44:35
Caren Merrick: to to invest our time and talents and
44:39
Caren Merrick: product development into.
44:40
Caren Merrick: And, Lisa, that was a very important distinction for us because I thought that
44:44
Caren Merrick: was went bankrupt.
44:46
Lisa Nichols: Sure.
44:47
Caren Merrick: And so by saying
44:47
Lisa Nichols: They were trying to serve everyone.
44:49
Lisa Nichols: Right?
44:50
Caren Merrick: Who's not our customer.
44:51
Caren Merrick: All important.
44:52
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
44:52
Caren Merrick: Who's not our customer?
44:54
Caren Merrick: Mhmm.
44:55
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
44:55
Lisa Nichols: Because yeah.
44:56
Lisa Nichols: That's that's so good.
44:58
Lisa Nichols: I mean and and, Karen, in all transparency, we've been there
45:02
Lisa Nichols: where, you know, there have been times where we've, like, you know, even serviced
45:06
Lisa Nichols: a little startup that has no money, and then we become the bank.
45:10
Lisa Nichols: I mean, you know, it's like, oh my goodness.
45:12
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
45:12
Lisa Nichols: We could that is so, so important to have clarity around that, I believe.
45:17
Lisa Nichols: So that is so good.
45:19
Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you this.
45:21
Lisa Nichols: You know, if a leader you know?
45:24
Lisa Nichols: And I know that you're still working on it, but what is one insight
45:28
Lisa Nichols: principle?
45:28
Lisa Nichols: Would that be it?
45:31
Lisa Nichols: That like, if you left the reader with one's insight principle from your
45:35
Lisa Nichols: book, what would it be?
45:36
Lisa Nichols: And I'm not I'm not putting words in your mouth, but maybe it's discernment.
45:40
Lisa Nichols: I don't know.
45:40
Lisa Nichols: Discernment between good and best.
45:46
Caren Merrick: My my meta insight would be make recognizing
45:51
Caren Merrick: and capturing insights a discipline.
45:54
Caren Merrick: Take it seriously.
45:55
Caren Merrick: And not only should you take it seriously, model it for your teams, get
45:59
Caren Merrick: them involved.
46:00
Caren Merrick: You know, you can actually,
46:03
Caren Merrick: you know, say to them in a in a meeting, let you know, let's
46:06
Caren Merrick: work on this together.
46:08
Caren Merrick: Let's ask better questions.
46:09
Caren Merrick: Let's create the space.
46:11
Caren Merrick: Let's make it safe for people to have insights or to question
46:15
Caren Merrick: things or to say you know, or even to ask.
46:18
Caren Merrick: I mean, I would work through these six or seven questions.
46:21
Caren Merrick: These were on my whiteboard as the secretary of commerce and trade.
46:25
Caren Merrick: Who's our customer?
46:26
Caren Merrick: What problem are we solving for customer?
46:28
Caren Merrick: Where's the leverage?
46:30
Caren Merrick: How do we measure it?
46:31
Caren Merrick: What is the best message and channel to
46:35
Caren Merrick: to reach our customer?
46:37
Caren Merrick: Because at any one of those points, any one of those questions,
46:41
Caren Merrick: you can go off the rails.
46:42
Caren Merrick: And Absolutely.
46:43
Caren Merrick: And you see it happening.
46:45
Caren Merrick: And and and especially, like, what's the best message and channel?
46:48
Caren Merrick: It's like, oh, we're all over the map on how we're going to get
46:51
Caren Merrick: the message out when really you can be disciplined about that.
46:54
Caren Merrick: But there and there are insights about how to do that.
46:57
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
46:58
Lisa Nichols: Well and we don't have time to get into it because we're running out
47:00
Lisa Nichols: of time, Karen, but I know you were very specific about that with webMethods.
47:05
Lisa Nichols: And I told you I was so intrigued because, you
47:09
Lisa Nichols: know, you know, I'll just say it, but you got a lot of media
47:11
Lisa Nichols: involved.
47:12
Lisa Nichols: You would have a client talk about webMethods and what had it done for
47:16
Lisa Nichols: your their company.
47:17
Lisa Nichols: And then, you know, all of a sudden, you know, it's showing up in
47:21
Lisa Nichols: a, you know, business insider or magazine.
47:24
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
47:24
Lisa Nichols: And then somebody else is reading about it.
47:26
Lisa Nichols: You know?
47:27
Lisa Nichols: And, so you were very, intentional about how you
47:31
Lisa Nichols: went about, doing that.
47:32
Lisa Nichols: So I think, that's gonna be this book is gonna be so amazing.
47:37
Lisa Nichols: When can we expect the book to be out?
47:38
Lisa Nichols: What do you what are you estimating?
47:40
Caren Merrick: I'm thinking late summer, actually, and I will be posting some
47:44
Caren Merrick: content on a regular basis on my LinkedIn.
47:48
Lisa Nichols: And Yeah.
47:49
Caren Merrick: So I will be I will be sharing some of these ideas.
47:53
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
47:53
Lisa Nichols: So I would just encourage our listeners, go and follow Karen.
47:57
Lisa Nichols: Go and follow her because she writes I didn't even get into this, but
48:00
Lisa Nichols: I know you write for entrepreneur dot com, Success Magazine.
48:03
Lisa Nichols: You write for a lot of, media outlets as well.
48:07
Lisa Nichols: So,
48:09
Lisa Nichols: I've got just maybe I've got lots more questions.
48:12
Lisa Nichols: Well, I know faith is really important to you.
48:16
Lisa Nichols: You know, faith is very important to you.
48:18
Lisa Nichols: Karen, you know, what You know, you've consistently
48:22
Lisa Nichols: said that business can be a force for good.
48:25
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
48:25
Lisa Nichols: And I was gonna ask you where does that conviction come from?
48:28
Lisa Nichols: I think I know where it comes from, but why don't you tell our
48:31
Lisa Nichols: listeners?
48:34
Caren Merrick: Business is a force for good.
48:36
Caren Merrick: Obviously, I be I believe as a Christian that the ultimate entrepreneur
48:41
Caren Merrick: and creator is God, and we're created in God's image.
48:45
Caren Merrick: But I will say I had a hunch about this,
48:49
Caren Merrick: about,
48:51
Caren Merrick: you know, being an entrepreneur.
48:52
Caren Merrick: And my grandfather was a small business owner, had been an itinerant farmer, ended
48:57
Caren Merrick: up becoming an electrician in the boom days in California.
49:00
Caren Merrick: Always humble.
49:02
Caren Merrick: And but what I saw firsthand, Lisa, starting this business
49:06
Caren Merrick: in in my basement with my husband, bootstrapping it along the way,
49:10
Caren Merrick: seeing it, you know, a couple of clips of death and all that all
49:14
Caren Merrick: of that you you learn from the the the things that didn't work and
49:18
Caren Merrick: the things that did.
49:19
Caren Merrick: But then, Lisa, as it grew, it was extraordinary.
49:24
Caren Merrick: What a company can do.
49:26
Caren Merrick: I saw people so energized about using their gifts and talents.
49:30
Caren Merrick: I saw people so energized about
49:34
Caren Merrick: working as a volunteer grant maker.
49:37
Caren Merrick: You know, I saw this company not only solving problems for businesses,
49:41
Caren Merrick: but going into the community.
49:43
Caren Merrick: We had people coming up to us over the years saying, we
49:47
Caren Merrick: bought our first house because of this company, because you believed in us and
49:51
Caren Merrick: you hired us.
49:52
Caren Merrick: We send our kids to college because of this company.
49:56
Caren Merrick: And and so I was so energized by that.
49:58
Caren Merrick: And since this company went public, we
50:03
Caren Merrick: we let it for many years.
50:04
Caren Merrick: We stepped down.
50:05
Caren Merrick: It was sold to software AG.
50:07
Caren Merrick: Then software AG had it for many years.
50:09
Caren Merrick: Then they just sold it to IBM IBM.
50:12
Lisa Nichols: Two billion dollars.
50:14
Lisa Nichols: Two billion dollars.
50:16
Caren Merrick: We had exited it, but this was something that we had we were part
50:19
Caren Merrick: of an amazing team over many, many years.
50:23
Caren Merrick: And so over the years, this company has done so much,
50:27
Caren Merrick: and and a lot of the people who worked at the company that we
50:30
Caren Merrick: had while we had it and we were leading it and serving it started
50:34
Caren Merrick: their own businesses, some of them more successful than WebMethods.
50:38
Caren Merrick: And so I believe by the grace of god, we helped to
50:42
Caren Merrick: foster this environment of innovation and ingenuity where people would
50:46
Caren Merrick: have courage and step out.
50:48
Caren Merrick: And this is what the marketplace does.
50:51
Caren Merrick: Now, obviously, not every business treats its, you know, folks
50:55
Caren Merrick: well or Right.
50:56
Caren Merrick: Or or or does that.
50:58
Caren Merrick: But but I do believe that far and away, most companies do
51:02
Caren Merrick: and that the whole world is looking to the business community Mhmm.
51:06
Caren Merrick: Or say that.
51:08
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
51:09
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
51:09
Lisa Nichols: That is so good.
51:10
Lisa Nichols: Well, I'm grateful to be a part of it, and I know you are
51:13
Lisa Nichols: too.
51:14
Lisa Nichols: Well, I've got a little lightning round for you, rapid fire questions here.
51:17
Lisa Nichols: Is there a word or a mantra that
51:21
Lisa Nichols: guide you today?
51:24
Caren Merrick: Oh, that's fascinating that you say that, Lisa, because on any given day,
51:28
Caren Merrick: there are probably multiple words.
51:31
Caren Merrick: But I would say that the word flourish just captures my
51:35
Caren Merrick: imagination.
51:36
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
51:37
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
51:37
Lisa Nichols: Ain't that a great word?
51:39
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
51:39
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
51:40
Lisa Nichols: And you've mentioned that several times, and you know about the Christian Business Women's
51:44
Lisa Nichols: Breakfast that the Rooted Sisters here in Saint Louis produces.
51:47
Lisa Nichols: That was our theme for this year.
51:49
Caren Merrick: Oh my god.
51:49
Lisa Nichols: Had not talked to you.
51:51
Lisa Nichols: I had not talked to Tony Counts Whitley or anybody about that.
51:54
Lisa Nichols: So isn't it amazing that Flourish, was our was our
51:58
Lisa Nichols: theme for the year?
52:00
Lisa Nichols: I know that you got two boys, Hudson and Jackson, and I
52:04
Lisa Nichols: read this about you, and I loved it.
52:06
Lisa Nichols: And I have never done this until last night, Karen.
52:09
Lisa Nichols: And my kids were like, mom, what are you doing?
52:12
Lisa Nichols: You play Words With Friends.
52:16
Lisa Nichols: Use them for connection.
52:18
Lisa Nichols: And so I'm getting on there.
52:19
Lisa Nichols: I never played Words With Friends, and I'm getting on there last night.
52:22
Lisa Nichols: And, Paige, Armildot, she goes, mom, what are you doing?
52:25
Lisa Nichols: She goes, I've never seen you play games on your phone.
52:29
Lisa Nichols: But I just I love that.
52:30
Lisa Nichols: Hey.
52:30
Lisa Nichols: Is there a leadership lesson or two that your boys have taught you, Karen?
52:37
Caren Merrick: Oh, yes.
52:38
Caren Merrick: Definitely.
52:40
Caren Merrick: Their love is unconditional, by the way, which I'm I'm grateful for.
52:44
Caren Merrick: I would say that
52:47
Caren Merrick: that our kids have taught me how to listen
52:51
Caren Merrick: better.
52:52
Caren Merrick: And the reason that they've taught me how to listen better is because I
52:55
Caren Merrick: needed to learn that lesson.
52:57
Caren Merrick: I didn't always appreciate it, but they gave me feedback either
53:02
Caren Merrick: either direct and gracious or otherwise.
53:05
Caren Merrick: Yes.
53:07
Caren Merrick: And, gosh, we need we need our kids to teach
53:11
Caren Merrick: us.
53:11
Caren Merrick: We need our kids to teach us.
53:13
Caren Merrick: And then I guess the only other thing I would say is that,
53:17
Caren Merrick: through the listening, I think I've helped them do what my parents
53:21
Caren Merrick: helped me do.
53:22
Caren Merrick: Not as much as I and I I ask myself this question a lot,
53:26
Caren Merrick: but I've helped them figure things out on their own by not jumping
53:30
Caren Merrick: in.
53:30
Caren Merrick: Like, my parents would you know, they'd say, you get this done, and then
53:34
Caren Merrick: they go away, and then we go they come back and it better be
53:37
Caren Merrick: done.
53:38
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
53:38
Lisa Nichols: Well and and to your point, it was out of necessity.
53:41
Lisa Nichols: Right?
53:41
Lisa Nichols: I mean, your dad was going to school at night and working, and your
53:44
Lisa Nichols: mom was working, and they they needed you guys to stand on your own
53:48
Lisa Nichols: two feet.
53:48
Lisa Nichols: You know?
53:49
Lisa Nichols: And
53:50
Caren Merrick: Yep.
53:50
Caren Merrick: It was so It's
53:51
Lisa Nichols: all for one and one for all.
53:53
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
53:54
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
53:55
Lisa Nichols: Well, I've gotta talk about this.
53:57
Lisa Nichols: I know one of your favorite pastimes is sailing.
54:00
Lisa Nichols: Oh.
54:01
Lisa Nichols: I mean, this is kind of a a funny question, but, you know, it's
54:05
Lisa Nichols: called Glad Inn It is the name of your catamaran.
54:08
Lisa Nichols: Right?
54:09
Lisa Nichols: You know, do have you figured out or, you know, have you, like, set
54:13
Lisa Nichols: back, Karen?
54:14
Lisa Nichols: Because I'm sure you have.
54:15
Lisa Nichols: Talking about the parallels
54:18
Lisa Nichols: between sailing the open sea and a start up.
54:22
Caren Merrick: Yes.
54:23
Caren Merrick: Yes.
54:24
Caren Merrick: Yes.
54:25
Caren Merrick: There.
54:26
Caren Merrick: Oh my gosh.
54:26
Caren Merrick: And by the way, we did not grow up in a family with boats
54:29
Caren Merrick: at all, and our kids ended up going to a sailing camp, which is
54:33
Caren Merrick: a whole other story we'll talk about sometime.
54:35
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
54:36
Caren Merrick: Lisa.
54:36
Caren Merrick: And because they went to sailing camp, we got a little catamaran, and we've
54:40
Caren Merrick: so then then we just tried this, and then we tried that, and then
54:42
Caren Merrick: we end up owning a catamaran.
54:45
Caren Merrick: And, and it's a it's a great catamaran.
54:47
Caren Merrick: It's got four cabins in it, plus a crew lives on board, and we
54:50
Caren Merrick: charter it out.
54:51
Caren Merrick: And, yes, it's it is a business.
54:54
Caren Merrick: It's definitely a business.
54:55
Caren Merrick: It's like a start up.
54:56
Caren Merrick: But even more than that, there are so many passages in the Bible about
55:00
Caren Merrick: the ocean and the sea and God's grandeur,
55:04
Caren Merrick: and you have to rely on God to be a sailor.
55:07
Caren Merrick: I mean, you have to really you have to all get certified, but
55:11
Caren Merrick: you're out in the open sea where there is so much you cannot control,
55:14
Caren Merrick: and you see the power and the glory of God out on the open
55:18
Caren Merrick: ocean.
55:18
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
55:19
Lisa Nichols: There's some uncertainty there.
55:21
Lisa Nichols: We did we did a sailing trip years ago with our attorney and his
55:25
Lisa Nichols: wife in the Chesapeake Bay, and it was we'd gone to Annapolis, and
55:30
Lisa Nichols: it was so choppy.
55:31
Lisa Nichols: I mean, really, after about thirty minutes, our our attorney's wife, dear
55:36
Lisa Nichols: friend of mine, she goes, you gotta take me back to the shore.
55:40
Lisa Nichols: So I'm back to the shore.
55:41
Lisa Nichols: But just recently, when we were in Florida, our son, Jordan,
55:45
Lisa Nichols: said I let's run a sailboat.
55:48
Lisa Nichols: You know?
55:48
Lisa Nichols: And we did go sailing.
55:49
Lisa Nichols: We had a captain and everything.
55:51
Lisa Nichols: You know?
55:51
Lisa Nichols: We we don't know anything about sailing.
55:53
Lisa Nichols: It was so relaxing, Karen.
55:55
Lisa Nichols: I said, I can see myself doing this more.
55:58
Lisa Nichols: It was so nice.
55:59
Lisa Nichols: And then Jenny, who I know that you've met, they've got a little Cameron,
56:03
Lisa Nichols: and they love to single too.
56:04
Lisa Nichols: But, yeah, I think that's so cool.
56:07
Lisa Nichols: Well, gosh.
56:08
Lisa Nichols: I gotta ask you.
56:09
Lisa Nichols: This is called something extra.
56:11
Lisa Nichols: What is the something extra that you believe every leader needs?
56:17
Caren Merrick: I I I have to say that I think it's insight.
56:21
Caren Merrick: I think it's it's it's the understanding
56:26
Caren Merrick: that if what you want is clarity
56:29
Caren Merrick: and wisdom and discernment,
56:32
Caren Merrick: you have to cultivate it.
56:33
Caren Merrick: It has to be a discipline.
56:35
Caren Merrick: It's almost like a spiritual discipline, Lisa.
56:39
Caren Merrick: You have to you have to have and and it needs to be in
56:42
Caren Merrick: a way that works for you.
56:44
Caren Merrick: Right?
56:44
Caren Merrick: Everybody processes information and comes at it at it
56:48
Caren Merrick: slightly uniquely because we're all so fearfully and wonderfully made.
56:53
Caren Merrick: But I suggest a framework, and I I I
56:57
Caren Merrick: and my book will be about suggesting that framework because it's really
57:01
Caren Merrick: essential.
57:02
Caren Merrick: If you want a full if you're a generous leader, you're a mission driven
57:05
Caren Merrick: leader, you wanna flourish, you want your team to flourish, you want your company
57:09
Caren Merrick: to flourish,
57:12
Caren Merrick: it's essential that you cultivate the discipline of of recognizing,
57:16
Caren Merrick: capturing, and applying your insights.
57:18
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
57:19
Lisa Nichols: Well, that gives me hope because the the operative
57:23
Lisa Nichols: word there is cultivate, which basically means anybody can
57:27
Lisa Nichols: do it.
57:28
Lisa Nichols: But you've got to have the intention, like you said, in the discipline to
57:32
Lisa Nichols: make it a priority, Karen.
57:33
Caren Merrick: Yeah.
57:34
Caren Merrick: At least they're there.
57:35
Caren Merrick: The insights are there, and there's some insights that are even within you.
57:39
Caren Merrick: There's, like, this treasure.
57:42
Caren Merrick: Right?
57:42
Caren Merrick: That's in you.
57:43
Lisa Nichols: Well, I cannot wait for your book, girl.
57:46
Lisa Nichols: Get to working on it because it's I know it's gonna help people.
57:49
Lisa Nichols: So, this has been so fun, Karen.
57:52
Lisa Nichols: I've absolutely loved every minute with you.
57:53
Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much for making the time to be on the show today.
57:56
Caren Merrick: Thank you.
57:57
Caren Merrick: You as well.
57:58
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58:00
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58:07
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