Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Revving the Rostrum: Lydia Fenet’s High-Octane Leap into Car Auctions

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Revving the Rostrum: Lydia Fenet’s High-Octane Leap into Car Auctions · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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  BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
• 0:04
  all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
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  designers, and everything in between.
• 0:11
  Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
• 0:16
  How did they get that job or become that person?
• 0:19
  The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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  Using skills honed over two decades, performing in front of thousands.
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  Our guests understands what it takes to engage, motivate, and inspire an audience.
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  She speaks on topics ranging from women's empowerment and leadership
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  to motivating sales teams to perform at their highest level.
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  Her speaking style is inclusive, engaging, and witty, keeping audiences
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  learning and laughing at the same time.
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  Since leading her first auction in 2001, Lydia Fennett has taken the rostrum for
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  over 1500 auctions, gracing stages and engaging audiences all over the world.
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  Car lovers will recognize her as Broad Arrow's principal auctioneer at
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  Monterey Car Week and Amelia Island.
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  And we are very flattered that Lydia has joined us to share her road to success.
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  And with that, let's welcome Lydia to Break Fix.
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  Thank you so much, Eric and Lauren.
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  I'm so excited to be here.
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  And joining me tonight is our newest co host, Lauren Goodman,
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  supervising producer of media and exhibitions from the REVS Institute.
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  So welcome to the show, Lauren.
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  Thank you.
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  Happy to be here.
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  Well, like all good break pick stories, there's always
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  a super heroine origin story.
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  So let's talk about the who, what, when, and where of Lydia.
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  Let's go back to the beginning.
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  And I'll preface that by saying no one goes to school to become an auctioneer.
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  Well, in my case, I did not go to a school to be an auctioneer.
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  I read an article in college in Vanity Fair magazine about a place called
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  Christie's Auction House in New York City.
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  I grew up in Louisiana.
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  My parents were not art collectors.
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  I was not aware that there was an art world where things were not hung on
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  a wall like they are in the museum.
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  You know, I didn't realize that people transacted art in much the
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  same way they transact many things.
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  And so I read this article about Princess Diana's dress is being sold
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  at a charity auction in New York City at this place called Christie's.
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  And everybody who worked there was glamorous and traveled the world and
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  had access to this incredible art.
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  And I became completely mesmerized by this world.
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  And as a result of that, I really started to dig in and try to learn more.
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  And again, this was before the internet.
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  I know many of your listeners are probably quite youthful and perhaps that was not
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  the way that you went to college, but the internet was just coming out when I was.
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  Graduating from college, frankly.
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  And so I really use a lot of word of mouth marketing and question asking pretty
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  much anyone I came in contact with to find out more and more about Christie's.
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  And eventually I was able to secure the information for
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  the internship coordinator.
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  And I called her.
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  Almost every day for two weeks to try to get an internship, which at
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  that time was completely full because in New York city, people start
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  looking for internships a year out.
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  And I was about two months out before the summer and I was just
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  wore her down with persistence.
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  I just kept calling day after day and I did not take the answer
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  that the internship was full.
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  I took the answer that the internship was full, but eventually I was able to seek
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  for that summer and I really never left.
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  About four years into my time at Christie's, auctioneering
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  tryouts were open to the entire company for the first time.
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  Up until that point, it had only been officers in the company.
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  Pretty much everyone there ended up being sort of in their thirties and forties.
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  They had families, they had lots of commitments.
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  And as a result of that, there were times where they couldn't make it to auctions,
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  especially charity auctions at night.
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  And because this happened a lot in my fourth year at Christie's.
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  They opened it up to the entire company and I marched myself right downstairs
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  for tryouts and spent four days doing exactly what everybody else was doing,
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  sort of pretending to be an auctioneer, like the auctioneers that we had seen.
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  And at the end of four days, I was one of four people still standing.
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  They passed all four of us.
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  And I was on stage, I think the next week in Kansas City crying out
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  what I learned in those classes.
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  And that was kind of how it all started.
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  Does every auction house have their own class, their own style that
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  they teach the people that there are part of their organization?
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  Yes, there are two types of auctioneering and an auction house
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  are two types of auctioneers.
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  There are auctioneers and charity auctioneers.
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  And when I was training, it was pretty much guaranteed if you were an art
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  auctioneer that you were a charity auctioneer, but it was not the same
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  if you were a charity auctioneer.
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  So the stakes to become a charity auctioneer, frankly, were a lot lower.
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  And that was kind of how I got my entree into the world of auctioneering the time.
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  I think there were maybe two female auctioneers and they were taking the
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  sales that Seemed really underwhelming to me, the sort of book sales in
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  front of maybe two or three people.
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  It was like a half to completely empty sale room versus the big blockbuster
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  evening sales that you see on the cover of the New York times where
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  people are selling a billion dollars.
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  Those were never women.
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  Whereas the charity auctions, those stages were kind of open for
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  anybody who would get up there.
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  And I got on stage and I started doing everything auctioneering
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  class, which was selling things that nobody wants at 11 o'clock at night.
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  Like you would sell a Picasso and as you can imagine in a room of crowded
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  people who've been drinking all night when you're acting really serious and
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  trying to sell a puppy at 11 o'clock at night the way that somebody would
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  try to sell a Picasso, you're going to get a kind of muted reaction to say the
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  least, but because that was the way I had been taught and frankly, Because I was
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  a woman and I felt really uncomfortable doing a job that most of the people were
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  like, wait, who's the real auctioneer?
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  I have to sort of laugh like, I'm really the only person here
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  who's going to be able to do it.
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  So if you want an auctioneer, I'm your only choice.
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  You know, that was really my attitude for about eight years of my auctioneering.
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  Nope.
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  It's yeah, I'm still the person.
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  It's going to be me.
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  Sorry.
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  There's no one else coming to save you.
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  About eight or nine years in, you know, I was taking at that
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  point, 50, 60, 70 auctions a year.
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  I mean, I was on stage pretty much every night during auction
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  gala season just because nobody else really wanted to take them.
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  And I just didn't feel like I was good and I wanted to be good.
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  And for me, that always equates to practice just learning what is it
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  that makes an audience pay attention.
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  What is it that keeps them coming back?
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  How do you push an underbidder a little bit harder?
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  That's all learned from practice.
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  That's learned from standing on stage and having people talk
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  over you and realizing that maybe this joke will make them listen.
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  Or maybe if I say this, or perhaps silence is the answer.
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  I was probably almost a decade into my charity auctioneering career.
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  So if you can imagine somewhere between like five and 700 really mediocre charity
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  auctions where people just talked over me.
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  I had a night where, frankly, I felt terrible.
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  I wasn't feeling good, and I called all the other auctioneers, but it
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  was a Saturday night, and they all sort of said, listen, you take the
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  auctions nobody wants, and nobody wants to take an auction on Saturday
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  night, so nobody's taking your auction.
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  And I remember rolling into the Central Park Boathouse, and I was so sick.
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  I was sitting next to the podium, like, literally dying from what
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  felt like the worst flu ever.
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  And I didn't have that adrenaline boost that put me back up to the
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  place where I pretended that I was an older British gentleman selling
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  Picassos at 11 o'clock at night.
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  And I just became kind of a sassy late 20 year old woman,
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  which is who I was at the core.
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  And I started tearing into the audience just with total abandon the
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  way that I would with my siblings, like making jokes about people
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  making, you're just having fun.
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  And in a way it was the first time I'd ever seen an audience pay attention.
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  And I'd ever seen them react in the way that I had always wanted them to react.
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  And I realized that just because I'd already seen something done in a
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  certain way didn't necessarily mean that it had to be done that way.
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  For me, that night was such an aha moment, and I never looked back.
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  Honestly, if that had been it, you know, if I'd done that night and that
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  had been it and nothing had ever come of it, that would have been fine.
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  I would have had that great night on stage.
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  But what happened was that quite quickly, the chairman of Christie's called me
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  and said, I got a call from somebody who was asking for that woman they saw.
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  And that must be you, because nobody else is taking auctions at
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  11 o'clock at night, except for you.
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  Would you want to go take this one?
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  And then it got to the point that The senior guys who never really felt
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  comfortable charity auctioneering, because they were really established
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  art auctioneers and they loved the formality of the increments and they
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  loved the roster where they stood.
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  Whereas I loved the big stage where I could walk and grab a microphone
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  and, you know, call people out.
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  All of those things I realized became this differentiator for me.
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  And it was making a difference for the charities.
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  You know, they were making twice as much as they had the year before
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  just by having something completely new and different on stage.
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  And I really found my footing and I just accelerated into it.
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  So the auctioneering tryouts that I was telling you about, the sort of four days
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  of survivor where you just get cut day after day until a few people are left.
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  I taught that class for over a decade at Christie's and I got to handpick
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  the charity auctioneers out of them.
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  It really is amazing to me.
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  And still, even as I entered into car auctioneering, which for me
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  just happened this past year.
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  Is that same feeling of doing something differently and showing
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  people that it can be done differently and it's not good or bad.
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  It's just different.
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  It almost sounds like you had the education of a standup comic, which is
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  you have to go out and bomb for years and years and begin to learn through practice.
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  How do I personally, how can I authentically manage an
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  audience, which is for you, you learned how for 10 years, how.
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  It wasn't working.
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  And when you tried something new, you said, Aha, something feels natural here.
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  Something feels like almost not work, even though it definitely is work.
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  Is there anything else that you found besides just the practice and the bombing?
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  Another discipline, let's say, that helped you hone that particular
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  approach that felt authentic to you?
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  One of the most important things is self awareness about your performance.
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  When you get on the stage, I talk about in one of my books, Really
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  having this feeling constantly of seeking the approval from the audience.
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  I can remember so many times getting off stage and somebody would grab my arm as
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  I walked past their table, completely deflated after a really mediocre auction.
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  And they would say, Oh, it was a tough crowd.
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  And I would think to myself, Oh, my God.
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  They know how badly I did.
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  Like, and it was just this spiral.
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  I would leave in tears, just, Oh, I couldn't control the audience.
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  It was so bad.
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  And now when somebody grabs my arm and says that I usually grab their own
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  back and say, I'm a charity auctioneer.
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  There's no other crowd.
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  Like there is no crowd.
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  That's easy.
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  This is what I do.
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  The skill that I've established over this time is this discipline of
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  assessing how my performances grow.
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  You know, I can tell you when I get off stage on a scale of one
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  to 10, where I did that night.
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  I will give it my all every single time, but I can always look back
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  on a performance and think, I could have said that at that moment.
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  I should have said that at that moment, or I'm going to use that in the next one.
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  That joke really worked kind of like an improv standup.
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  I have a whole group of jokes that I can go into when things aren't going well.
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  And I have a whole group that I can lean into when they are going well.
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  depending on how the crowd is doing, how to encourage them, how to maybe give
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  them a nudge, how to give them a nudge with a hood and a wink, you know, what
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  it takes to really get them to come back to me, especially when they're tired
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  and they don't want to be there anymore.
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  We are here to talk about cars as well as auctioning.
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  And so part of your journey goes from Christie's.
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  To broad arrow, why don't you take us on the rest of this trip
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  and explain how that came to be?
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  I can't tell you how surprised everyone was.
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  And no one was more surprised than me.
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  I'll be honest.
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  So in the beginning of 2022, I was transitioning from a full time role at
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  Christie's into an ambassador position, meaning I wasn't going to be running
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  a full time team, which I'd been doing for the company for over two decades.
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  At that point, I was just going to be a charity auctioneer for them.
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  That for me was really about being able to create this platform and
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  to continue building it outside of the four walls of the company that
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  I grew up in that I love so much.
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  The beauty of that was that I was going from a full time role to a consultant
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  role, which really cleared the deck for anything else that I wanted to do.
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  As you can imagine, having worked at a company for so long, it's weird
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  to lose that part of your identity because for so many years, I mean,
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  really since college, everyone's like, well, Lydia works for Christie's ex.
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  And it was always about Christie's.
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  What I really wanted to see was what happened as I started to drop
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  that and to shed that identity.
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  And so I had the ambassadorship.
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  I could continue taking auctions as a charity auctioneer from Christie's,
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  but that left a lot of room.
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  I'm a big believer in business that we're always looking for the white space.
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  I never say no to anything.
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  I don't really think of anything as failure.
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  If it works great.
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  If it doesn't, it was a learning lesson.
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  And so as I left Christie's, there was a gentleman who knew Ian, who is the head of
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  marketing for broad arrow and broader, it was really just launching at this point.
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  I mean, they were.
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  Gearing up for their first sale at Monterey during the pebble beach week.
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  And I didn't really know that much about it, but I got an email from
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  this guy named Ian and just asking if I would have breakfast with them.
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  They were thinking about trying something new from an auctioneering standpoint.
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  They'd watched a lot of my videos on YouTube, which by the way, I didn't
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  even know I had videos on YouTube.
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  So the whole thing was just kind of making me laugh.
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  And I honestly was laughing as I left that morning.
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  I was laughing at my husband.
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  I was like, yeah, can you even imagine like a car auctioneer?
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  You know, what is that?
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  We went out for breakfast that morning.
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  This is why I will say to everyone who is listening, like you should
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  always take a meeting because timing is a really weird thing.
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  And Ian and I sat down and I think we spent almost two hours talking.
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  At first, I was like, this is not something I would ever consider.
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  And by the end of breakfast, I was, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
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  As I left Christie's, I'd also had conversations with Sotheby's, and it
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  was a little sticky because Sotheby's, RM, and Broad Arrow had parted ways.
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  And so that in itself was its own thing.
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  Did I eventually want to go to Sotheby's if I left Christie's full time?
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  I mean, these were all just things going around in my head.
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  There were so many different components.
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  And I will say one thing that I have loved about the Broad Arrow team since
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  the beginning is They are very forthright.
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  There's no ambiguity.
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  They were like, we want you.
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  You tell us what you need to make that happen.
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  I kept thinking of things that I could throw in there that
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  maybe would make them say no.
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  And they just never said no.
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  I think when you realize that somebody really wants you for what you do,
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  there's nothing as flattering.
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  And they had nothing but faith in what I did.
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  And that to me, after so many years was just such an incredible moment of clarity.
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  I was like, you know, I've created something that somebody really wants.
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  And here we go.
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  We're on the same page.
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  And I'll tell you, I walked into that sale in Petal Beach or at
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  Monterey in August of 2022, and it really could have gone either way.
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  I stood up on that stage and it didn't feel like every single person in that
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  audience really wanted me on that stage.
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  I can tell you just looking into the audience, it felt a little
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  bit like my first charity auction.
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  I feel like the guys at Broad Arrow knew that they could not have been nicer.
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  It was anything I could think of.
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  They were like, what do you need?
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  They know I drink Diet Coke.
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  Do you need a Diet Coke?
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  Do you need more water?
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  I mean, it was like anything.
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  At one point, I think we were selling a princess carriage.
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  I was like, if you guys could just get the princess carriage,
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  I think we'd be all set.
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  I just need a new car to be your auctioneer.
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  That's all I need.
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  And at the end of that sale, I think we both felt like it was a fit.
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  Over the past year, I took five sales with them from year over
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  year, Monterey to Monterey.
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  I think every single one, we just got closer and closer and closer to
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  a lockstep this year at Monterey.
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  I mean, I was on stage for two days, five and a half hours each day without a break.
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  And there was never a point where I felt like either one of us
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  didn't know what was happening.
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  You know, we figured out every one of our hand signals, you know, it's all, it's
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  its whole language, car auctioneering.
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  It's been such a blast.
• 14:32
  I cannot even tell you how much I love working with the team, and
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  I'm so excited to be with them.
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  I just flew out this past weekend to take the Peterson Museum, and they all showed
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  up to support it, and it's just great.
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  I love it.
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  I love the car world.
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  I love the people in the car world.
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  I love learning about cars again.
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  Who knew?
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  And I was kind of thinking to myself, you know, charity auctions, art auctions
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  at Christie's, you couldn't be any more diametrically opposed to cars in a way.
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  Has there been a huge learning curve?
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  How are you preparing for these auctions?
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  How are you studying?
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  Do you have somebody coaching you on what to say?
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  And not just, it's a red Ferrari from 1968.
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  Like, how are you prepping for these versus what you're used to in the past?
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  It's amazing.
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  I mean, it really is, as I said, and you just said this
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  too, it is its own language.
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  So there's a ton of prep work that goes in.
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  The catalogs are sent to me in advance.
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  I pour through them.
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  I'm basically reading all of the essays and everything about the
• 15:20
  provenance, but a lot of it similar to the art world just comes from osmosis.
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  You know, walking around with a specialist during the specialist meetings.
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  We were laughing during one of the early interest meetings before the
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  sale where we were flipping through the cars and I saw this one car and I was
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  like, Oh, this must be like, you know.
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  The car that's not going to sell.
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  And everyone was like, Oh, there are 11 people who are
• 15:39
  interested in buying this car.
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  And I said to Alan, the reader from broad arrow, I kind of whispered.
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  I was like, really?
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  I thought this was like the dump of the sale.
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  I didn't think anybody, he just started laughing so hard.
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  And he had to tell everyone at broad arrow that I'd said that because
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  they just thought it was so funny.
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  Every single one, if I say something like that, they're like, let me tell
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  you why, you know, they'll laugh, but then they're like, but no, let me
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  explain to you why this is important.
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  Let me explain the provenance.
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  Let me explain what makes this type of car, this curve, this angle.
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  And it's really incredible to understand more.
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  And I find myself every time I'm with them, looking at a car.
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  And thinking to myself, Oh, that's the reason that that
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  one is going to sell for more.
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  Or I understand that because of this part of this history of this
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  car, this particular year is going to be the one that's going to sell.
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  It's like wine or art.
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  It's all a similar pattern in many ways, but at the same
• 16:26
  time, it's completely different.
• 16:27
  So I'm going to take the opportunity to ask you a pit stop question with
• 16:31
  respect to the fact that now you've been through two Pebble Beach seasons.
• 16:35
  Is there a sexiest car?
• 16:37
  of all time, or most beautiful, however you want to phrase that.
• 16:40
  I took a sail down at the Porsche Center in Atlanta.
• 16:43
  I think as a result of that, I've kind of fallen in love with that car.
• 16:46
  I don't know if I'm going to get completely alienated by the
• 16:48
  car community for saying this.
• 16:50
  I don't know what a good car is versus a bad car.
• 16:52
  I can just tell you, I think that a 1960 Porsche is a very sexy car.
• 16:56
  And if anyone is giving those to auctioneers, please know that I
• 16:59
  would be a grateful recipient.
• 17:01
  You mentioned earlier, as part of your origin story, this Idea this picture that
• 17:06
  was painted about what auctioneering would be like, and I think many of us might
• 17:11
  have that same sort of fallacy about the world that you live in and you work in.
• 17:16
  And for most of us, it's that, you know, classic, you know, Johnny Cash, 51, 52,
• 17:20
  53, and we're going through the numbers and it's like a rodeo auction in a way.
• 17:24
  But I take away this illusion that it's like the red violin.
• 17:28
  If you've ever seen that movie, very sophisticated, very high
• 17:31
  brow and those kinds of things.
• 17:32
  Is it really like that?
• 17:34
  What is the auctioneering world like for those that have never attended one?
• 17:37
  I think it all depends on what type of auction you go to.
• 17:40
  You know, it even depends on the auctioneer who's on stage.
• 17:44
  I worked with a broad arrow auctioneer up in Gloversville when
• 17:46
  we were selling the collection of Jim Taylor, who he is trained as a
• 17:49
  traditional car or cattle auctioneer.
• 17:51
  I mean, he is ripping through the increments.
• 17:54
  Everything is a chant.
• 17:55
  It's a completely different style than the style that I use.
• 17:58
  I think at Christie's it is very Red Violin esque.
• 18:01
  There's so much that goes on behind the scenes.
• 18:03
  There's so many things that you would never even imagine
• 18:06
  when you watch an auctioneer.
• 18:07
  There are mathematical increments that are flying through your head.
• 18:10
  There are reserves that are set by the buyer that you can't exceed.
• 18:13
  There are so many things to think about, and I think a really talented
• 18:16
  auctioneer would never show you that.
• 18:18
  So to that extent, I do think it's a little bit like the Red Violin.
• 18:21
  I think the car auctioneering is a little different, but at the
• 18:24
  end of the day, it's all the same.
• 18:26
  You as the auctioneer are essentially the conductor of the orchestra
• 18:29
  and everybody's looking to you to ensure that it's going well.
• 18:33
  And one thing I've always said about training auctioneers, it doesn't matter
• 18:36
  if the sky is falling, keep a smile on your face because nobody knows that things
• 18:41
  are going wrong unless you show them.
• 18:43
  And I truly think that that's really what auctioneering is about.
• 18:46
  It's like, you're figuring it all out.
• 18:47
  You're the duck with their little feet paddling as fast as possible underneath,
• 18:50
  but on the top, it's supposed to look elegant and seamless and beautiful.
• 18:55
  Speaking of which, when you're talking about the preparation, especially for
• 18:58
  something like Amelia Island and Pebble Beach, those are momentous occasions.
• 19:03
  Those really are anchors in the calendar.
• 19:05
  It is a lot of pressure.
• 19:07
  Some of the press that came out about this past year's Monterey Car
• 19:10
  Week was a little bearish about, oh, like maybe sales are kind of down.
• 19:14
  But I'm also wondering a little bit if when you're looking at your audiences
• 19:18
  and maybe because cars is a newer thing for you, you don't have the years
• 19:21
  under your belt to be able to compare.
• 19:23
  But maybe also the audience you're talking to is changing.
• 19:26
  It's something we're talking about with cars.
• 19:28
  And maybe what they're into is also changing.
• 19:30
  So just like the status quo, like, oh, auctioneering means you talk like this.
• 19:34
  But wait, why does it have to be like this?
• 19:36
  Maybe also looking at the market.
• 19:38
  Okay, the kind of people who come to the car auction are this.
• 19:41
  Well, maybe they're actually moving a little this way or a little that way.
• 19:45
  Is that a trend that Broad Arrow is talking about?
• 19:48
  Like all companies right now, one of the most interesting things
• 19:51
  to consider is the online market.
• 19:53
  You know, I think that that's in any auction business is crazy not
• 19:57
  to look at the online market and think, how can you push boundaries?
• 20:00
  How can you entice new bidders?
• 20:01
  Because the more bidders you have, whether online or in the room or
• 20:05
  coming in, frankly, on the phones.
• 20:06
  The more chance you have to get an underbidder and it was the auctioneer.
• 20:09
  That's all I'm looking for.
• 20:10
  I'm looking for the person to push ultimately the person who wants it.
• 20:13
  I'll probably get it, but how far can I push them up?
• 20:16
  You know, I think that the markets are changing.
• 20:18
  I think to be savvy, you have to keep up with that.
• 20:20
  There does still seem to be an appetite in the car community.
• 20:22
  As far as I can tell when you're in, in the community around it, people
• 20:26
  want to be there for the rallies.
• 20:28
  They want to be there for the early morning donuts.
• 20:30
  You know, they want to be there for all those moments.
• 20:32
  In the calendar to see one another and to bond over something that they all love,
• 20:36
  which in this case is the car community.
• 20:38
  Again, I come from the art world.
• 20:40
  It's a very similar thing in the art world.
• 20:41
  You know, if I was in Hong Kong, London, or New York at a certain time of the
• 20:44
  year, I would always bump into people because they were there for the sales.
• 20:47
  I do think that that's the beauty of these communities.
• 20:50
  And hopefully the answer is you're bringing in younger, more energetic
• 20:53
  buyers, as well as courting the people who've been there for a long time.
• 20:56
  And that knowledge is being passed down generation over generation.
• 20:59
  Not only have you been an auctioneer, you've run your own agency.
• 21:03
  Now you're involved in the car world.
• 21:05
  You're also into podcasting.
• 21:07
  And though we won't count this as an official crossover episode, tell our
• 21:11
  audience a little about your show, claim your confidence in what it's all about.
• 21:15
  During COVID, I, like many people, was a little stir crazy.
• 21:20
  I'm a complete extrovert in every sense of the imagination.
• 21:23
  And so it was really difficult being at home without anyone, except my
• 21:28
  kids and my husband in four walls and homeschooling and running a team
• 21:32
  and all the different things that we were all juggling at that point.
• 21:34
  And a nonprofit that I had worked with for a long time reached
• 21:37
  out to me called the River Fund.
• 21:39
  And said, listen, we can't do our auction this year and we need cash.
• 21:42
  There's a food pantry line that is going around the block four times.
• 21:46
  It's dire.
• 21:47
  Is there anything you can do?
• 21:49
  And I'm just sort of sitting there and I was like, listen, I could
• 21:51
  start interviewing people and ask people to donate to the river
• 21:54
  fund if they were interested in listening as just something to do.
• 21:58
  And my first book that I wrote was called the most powerful
• 22:01
  woman in the room is you.
• 22:02
  And in that book, I have case studies from different women who.
• 22:05
  Just basically gave knowledge about things that had happened in their life.
• 22:08
  People like Martha Stewart, Barbara Corcoran, Arianna Huffington.
• 22:12
  So I just emailed every single person I could think of and said, listen, if I was
• 22:15
  to set up this Instagram live 4 PM every afternoon during COVID, would you come on?
• 22:20
  And I can just ask you questions about what you're doing because
• 22:23
  we're all kind of struggling and I'm sure tips could be used COVID.
• 22:30
  And then Rockefeller center had seen that happening.
• 22:32
  One of the women who worked in Rockefeller center.
• 22:34
  And so when they opened a podcast studio, they called me and said,
• 22:37
  listen, we have this podcast studio.
• 22:38
  We would love for you to bring the most powerful woman in the room is
• 22:41
  dot, dot, dot to Rockefeller center.
• 22:43
  And I actually sold my first book to Netflix.
• 22:46
  So I don't own that name anymore, but I just written my second book
• 22:49
  called claim your confidence.
• 22:50
  My podcast idea was really simple.
• 22:52
  I live in New York.
• 22:53
  I bump into powerful women all the time.
• 22:55
  I thought, why not just interview them and ask them what it was like and what they
• 22:58
  are like as it pertains to confidence.
• 23:00
  If they're confident now, if they grew up that way, what it took them to get there.
• 23:04
  And a lot of times you find that people may have had confidence.
• 23:07
  They might've lost it along the way, but we hear those stories on the podcast.
• 23:11
  So I'm coming to the end of season one, January 31st, and I'm opening
• 23:14
  up season two to men and women.
• 23:16
  Henryk Blundquist, the New York Rangers goalie, is going to be
• 23:19
  my first guest on season two.
• 23:21
  So we're going to start it in a new direction and talk about confidence
• 23:24
  with men and women, which I think will be really interesting and open the
• 23:27
  conversation to a new audience as well.
• 23:29
  Well, speaking of confidence in women, is that how you came to Slam.
• 23:34
  The slam.
• 23:34
  Slam your imposter syndrome.
• 23:36
  Yeah.
• 23:37
  You know, I, I'm a writer.
• 23:38
  I write to a white space.
• 23:39
  I write about everything that's going on in my life.
• 23:41
  I mean, it's almost like a diary that just keeps going.
• 23:44
  And because there have been so many seismic shifts in my life
• 23:48
  in the past five years, those all become fodder for chapters.
• 23:51
  And imposter syndrome was something that I felt so much when I was younger.
• 23:55
  All the time.
• 23:56
  I can remember sitting in meetings and walking in and just being like.
• 23:59
  I'm never going to open my mouth because everyone's going to be like,
• 24:02
  who is that woman sitting in there?
• 24:04
  He doesn't have anything to say, or she's not saying the right thing.
• 24:06
  And I say a lot in the book, like nobody thinks that it's what we think about
• 24:09
  ourselves and how we fill our minds with who we are and the space that we take up.
• 24:15
  And so slam your imposter syndrome was really just about.
• 24:18
  Stopping those negative thoughts about ourself, listening to what people
• 24:21
  say, accepting, as I said earlier, that we give ourselves a gold star.
• 24:25
  Nobody else gives you a gold star for living the life you want and making
• 24:28
  our point and not backing down when you know you're right about something.
• 24:31
  And it seems intuitive, but sometimes just hearing somebody else say it
• 24:35
  is all you need, that and having a gavel and being able to slam it down.
• 24:38
  Those two things are always very helpful for me.
• 24:40
  I do need more gavels in my life.
• 24:42
  I think that's going to help me a great deal at my own job.
• 24:44
  So I'm going to adopt that.
• 24:45
  Well, Lauren, I will tell you as a salesperson that today I launched
• 24:49
  a gavel charm necklace called the strike method to give you
• 24:53
  confidence when you don't have it.
• 24:54
  So for those of you who are out there and you want a gavel to wear on days
• 24:58
  when you don't feel so great, or you just need a little confidence
• 25:01
  boost, I literally launched it today.
• 25:03
  And I would say for all the.
• 25:04
  Dad's daughters out there as well.
• 25:06
  I launched it on both of my daughters because I want them to feel confident
• 25:10
  and ready to go at anything for anything.
• 25:13
  Oh, that's wonderful.
• 25:14
  I love that.
• 25:15
  I love that.
• 25:16
  I do want to touch on though.
• 25:17
  I really liked the, what really stuck out to me in slam was listening to what
• 25:23
  people are saying, not what you think.
• 25:25
  They're saying, and I felt personally attacked by that advice,
• 25:29
  but thank you for calling me, calling me to the front like that.
• 25:33
  But could you just expand on that a little bit for our listeners?
• 25:36
  So I had three children in a row as some of us do in life.
• 25:40
  I had them all within four years.
• 25:42
  I had been working at Christie's for 13 years when I had my first child.
• 25:46
  It was definitely on my mind.
• 25:47
  I didn't even tell anyone I was pregnant with my first child until I was well
• 25:50
  into my fourth month, just because I didn't want to be counted out.
• 25:53
  This was 10 years ago.
• 25:54
  So it wasn't the conversation that is taking place today.
• 25:57
  And I really can't tell you how many times people would say things to me and I
• 26:01
  would take them in the worst way possible.
• 26:04
  And I say in the book, really good guy friend of mine who
• 26:06
  I'd worked with forever.
• 26:08
  And I have a really, really, like, I love a sense of humor.
• 26:11
  I have two brothers and a sister, and really all we do is just make
• 26:14
  fun of each other all the time.
• 26:15
  So I'm always down for being made fun of.
• 26:17
  I'm always down for making fun of other people.
• 26:19
  But my guy friend, as I walked in, said something about, I can't even
• 26:22
  remember what the exact sentence was, but it was something like nice to see
• 26:25
  you back here or something like that said in the most innocent way possible.
• 26:29
  And the spiral of negativity that came out of that comment
• 26:32
  to me, all I could think of was.
• 26:34
  Oh, he means that I'm not here all the time because I have three kids at home.
• 26:37
  He must be thinking that I'm not here anymore and that I've taken
• 26:40
  all these maternity leaves and what a slacker and just on and on.
• 26:44
  And so I say in the book, listen to what people say.
• 26:48
  And also if you're going to have a narrative.
• 26:50
  Make it a good one, right?
• 26:52
  Why do I go down that negative spiral?
• 26:54
  I say in the book, what I should have said to myself is like, he said to
• 26:56
  you, like, how are the kids at home?
• 26:58
  Like glad to see you back or something.
• 26:59
  And what I should have said was Lydia, great to see you back here.
• 27:02
  God, three kids at home and you're still put together and
• 27:04
  getting into work on time.
• 27:06
  Like, here's to you.
• 27:07
  What's wrong with that story?
• 27:08
  Why give myself the opposite one?
• 27:10
  So if you're going to make up a story, Make it a positive one.
• 27:13
  But first and foremost, listen to what people say and don't assume based on where
• 27:18
  you are, what you're thinking that what they're saying is not nice or negative.
• 27:22
  I think that's actually the perfect segue into this next question, which
• 27:26
  we have reformulated for different guests on the show, especially women
• 27:30
  in the auto sphere to ask them.
• 27:31
  a perspective for a younger version of themselves, or my
• 27:35
  daughters, or your daughters, or anybody else's that are out there.
• 27:37
  So if a young woman walked up to you at the next Broad Arrow Radius event
• 27:41
  and said, Lydia, why do you do this?
• 27:43
  And how can I become you?
• 27:46
  What would you say?
• 27:47
  First and foremost, send me a video and I can either Help you learn how to be
• 27:51
  an auctioneer or I can represent you as part of my auctioneering agency.
• 27:55
  No, I'm kidding.
• 27:56
  You know, I would just say to them, listen, if this is something that you're
• 27:58
  passionate about, there are definitely auctioneering schools that you can go to.
• 28:03
  Most importantly, start public speaking.
• 28:06
  That, for me, is always the key to good auctioneering.
• 28:09
  Take an improv class, get comfortable being on stage, and
• 28:12
  then start learning about cars.
• 28:14
  Start educating yourself about this industry that you want to be in.
• 28:18
  Same with the art auctioneering.
• 28:19
  If it's something that you want to do, do the work.
• 28:22
  Because at the end of the day, there is absolutely no
• 28:24
  substitute for doing the work.
• 28:26
  And once you do it, you'll realize that the more you do, the more
• 28:29
  successful you're going to be.
• 28:30
  So if you want to be an auctioneer, I would say start taking
• 28:33
  some public speaking classes.
• 28:34
  Take a couple of improv classes, start taking an auctioneering school.
• 28:38
  If there's one close to you, if not, just start watching videos.
• 28:41
  None of this is rocket science.
• 28:42
  It's just practice and getting comfortable on your feet in front of people.
• 28:46
  Well, with that, Lydia, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd like
• 28:49
  to share that we haven't covered thus far?
• 28:51
  Well, I say to everyone, I am busiest on Instagram, which I, Live on
• 28:55
  because I think it's such a fun thing.
• 28:57
  And also my mom watches it in that way.
• 28:58
  She always knows where I am, which is helpful.
• 29:00
  I have two books, the most powerful woman in the room is you
• 29:03
  and claim your confidence, which are both available on Amazon.
• 29:05
  And as you mentioned earlier, I have a claim your confidence podcast.
• 29:08
  So be sure to tune into that, but otherwise you will see me back on stage
• 29:12
  with broad arrow and Amelia in March and next year in Monterey as well.
• 29:16
  And I think we have some other sales 2024.
• 29:19
  So if you're looking for me in the car world, that's where I'll be.
• 29:22
  Lydia Fennett is the founder and CEO of the Lydia Fennett Agency,
• 29:26
  a boutique agency representing best in class charity auctioneers.
• 29:30
  Over her two decade long career, Lydia served as the Global Managing Director
• 29:35
  of Strategic Partnerships for Christie's and reshaped the fundraising landscape as
• 29:39
  the world's leading charity auctioneer.
• 29:41
  She has single handedly raised over 1 billion for more than 800 organizations
• 29:46
  and broken down countless barriers for women in the auction industry.
• 29:50
  To learn more about Lydia, be sure to pick up a copy of her
• 29:52
  book, Claim Your Confidence.
• 29:53
  Visit her website at LydiaFennett.
• 29:56
  com or tune into her podcast of the same name everywhere you stream or listen.
• 30:00
  You can also follow her on social media at LydiaFennett on Instagram and
• 30:05
  threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
• 30:06
  And if that's not enough, catch up with her at the next Broad
• 30:09
  Arrow Radius auction near you.
• 30:11
  With that, Lydia, I can't thank you enough for coming on BreakFix and sharing your
• 30:15
  road to success story with us and any women in the autosphere or petrolheads
• 30:19
  that are out there that are interested in this corner of the automotive world.
• 30:23
  And one thing that I've noticed about this conversation and you exude it
• 30:27
  every time we've gotten together and talked, it's that old adage.
• 30:30
  Do what you love and you'll love what you do.
• 30:32
  And you epitomize that statement.
• 30:34
  And for those that haven't seen Lydia in an action, I highly recommend it.
• 30:38
  So thank you again for what you're doing and inspiring other
• 30:40
  automotive enthusiasts out there.
• 30:42
  Oh, thank you, Eric and Lauren for the opportunity and thank you to
• 30:45
  all the listeners for tuning in.
• 30:51
  We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix Podcast, brought
• 30:55
  to you by Grand Touring Motorsports.
• 30:58
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• 31:00
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• 31:08
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