Latest / "the good work talk show" with mallory contois / the good work talk show | ep. 01 - jean luo

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the good work talk show | ep. 01 - jean luo · "the good work talk show" with mallory contois

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Having that time away from work gave me the confidence to finally leave.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Which for me was a very scary thing.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know how to use Excel.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why did they hire an analyst who like couldn't even do Excel?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was the vanguard of social gaming, and it changed the world forever.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we have to learn how to enjoy ourselves?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I don't know.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is probably not a sexy answer.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Most honest answers aren't.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: My guest today is Jean Liu.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: She spent 15 years building an incredible career at Goldman Sachs, at Zynga, at HBS, leading product at Snap.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then she walked away from all of it to start a podcast with her sister Cherie called the Tiger Sisters.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Today I'm super excited to ask her about leaving that career path and taking a big bet on herself, what that pivot actually looked and felt like.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious what her definition of wealth is now and how she's pursuing that versus maybe what it looked like five or ten years ago.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really excited to hear what she thinks about work in this world that we're in where things are changing so quickly.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you have thought about making a big bet on yourself or changing careers or pivoting, I think you're really gonna like hearing from her and you're gonna love this episode.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Mallory Confois, and this is Good Work.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wrong leg.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's so nice out.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is lovely out today.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Jean Liu, welcome to Good Work.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy that you're here.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so I'm so excited to have you, and um, I'm very excited to, as much as I I love Cherie, I'm excited to get you on your own and talk to you a little bit about your journey.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um, hi, Sheree, if you're watching this.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little nervous because usually Cherie like answers first.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So like maybe there's gonna be a pause.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: We can we can edit it out.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be great.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna start with like way back childhood, um, and then we'll work our way up.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I want to hear first what you were like as a kid.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, was there any bit that this it was like, oh, this person's gonna be a Goldman analyst, this person's gonna be a podcast host, or like what were you like?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe like looking back on it all, like maybe you can like pick up like little elements here and there and be like, oh, retrospectively, like I can see why this would have happened.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think it was ever like a very obvious thing.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think as a kid, I was very curious.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was really creative.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I loved doing like all different sorts of activities.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was one of the things that growing up I'm like very grateful for that I got to do a billion different activities, like in the arts and like sports, dancing.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was super nerdy.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was always, always reading.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like to the point where my parents would be like, Gene, stop reading.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was like I would be like like crossing the street and like reading.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like dangerously reading.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Dangerously reading.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I bet you've never had that before.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I played a ton of video games, like computer games.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you remember a favorite?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Sims.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was a big roller coaster, roller coaster tycoon girly.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I guess that was a little bit of um pre- what is it called?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh predicting uh prediction.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Foreshadowing.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I did end up working um on Farmville with a bunch of the game designers from The Sims.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I bet they had crazy stories.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a dream come true for me.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you guys tell me everything.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you guys created my entire childhood.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And now I get to work with you.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like now we're peers and I'm telling you what to do.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was bananas.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you were like very curious, you were kind of doing a bunch of things, which like feels right to me.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: What about discipline?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, were you um do you were you very particular about things or were you a little bit looser and just sort of exploratory?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was a very, I think I was a very like conscientious child since I was the older child.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I guess I was a single child for seven years, right?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Which is like a bunch of your formative years.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Was I disciplined?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think I did what I was told.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Same.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, speaking of that, I'm curious because your um your podcast, Tiger Sisters, you know, hints a little bit at maybe your upbringing or how you were raised.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious, kind of how were you brought up?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe were there themes in your house that your parents really wanted you to know?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like what do you, what comes to mind for that?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think going back to the doing a lot of different activities, I think that was something that looking back was a very formative part of my childhood.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just because my mom would bring me to like pottery class, she would bring me to like tricky.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a pottery class or to pottery class for you.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, pottery classes for me.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, at the like local community college, I remember like when I was really young, we would like take the bus there.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I did like dance classes, I did like, you know, all these different things.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think through doing that, it helped me develop this sort of like lifelong belief that it's fun to try new things.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, I think it's given me very much a beginner mindset where being a beginner is not a bad thing, right?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And being a beginner, you don't expect to be good.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just fun to try a lot of different things and not be scared.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Was your sister similar?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or was were you guys different as kids?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like she's like, I call her like the better version of me.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm the like alpha, she's the beta, like in terms of like software development, like like the better version or like the final product.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because she a lot of times, since she's seven years younger, she would do a lot of the things that I did, but she would always be better.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, like she was learning from you.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I guess so.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then also she kind of had like more resources too.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so like I used to be a diver.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was my sport in like middle school and high school.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like pool, like pool diving.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pool diving.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was like very, very solidly mid, like bad to mid.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like I never like was good, but I could get points for the team.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then my sister, on the other hand, like went to diving camp.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like she went to counties.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: She was like really, really good.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was just similar in like a lot of different, um, a lot of different arenas.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: How did that make you feel?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Proud.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful answer.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, well, let's fast forward a little bit.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: You did Goldman, you went to HBS, you ended up, you know, at Snap Leading Product.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's a pretty incredible, like the uh non-negotiably excellent career path.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm curious, like looking back, you had to have some edge.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's like not people don't go through that path without having something special.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think your edge was that allowed you to kind of pursue and get those opportunities?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think ironically, my edge was that I was never the best, most obvious candidate for any of those roles.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it is very funny, like looking back on it now and like hearing you tell my like career path back to me.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, that's like pretty good.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But oh yeah, Gene.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: But like at the time when I started working at Goldman, I didn't even know how to use Excel, which is like now that I think back on it, I'm like, that's crazy that they hired me.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why did they hire an analyst who like couldn't even do Excel?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, why did they?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I was on an investment team, and a big part of the role was actually doing all the analysis, but then also turning that analysis into a 50 to like 80 page memo where we would then present the memo to the investment committee weekly and make our case.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was an incredible writer.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that was something that I was like, oh wow, like I didn't even know that that would be my edge working at Goldman Sachs, like the most analytical and quantitative of roles you could possibly do after school.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, right.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we're in 2012.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Most people that are working in product and engineering and like those areas are formally trained or like have the degree.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I had no technical degree back then.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what did you major in?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I majored in economics, modified with Chinese, with a minor in environmental studies.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're really covering the gamut there.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where you're just like, I'll just do a little everything.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so that's like another instance where I was a very non-obvious candidate for for the role.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So do you think that you were really good at storytelling around like looking back, how do you think you convinced them to overlook those sort of like glaring gaps?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I think I was able to unknowingly sell them on my other attributes that turned out to be really important in the role.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And almost in some ways, even more important than the super, like the most obvious traits that you would think of for the role.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's something that we talk about a lot in my podcast with my sister, Tiger Sisters, is just like don't count yourself out.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't rule yourself out and don't like take yourself out of the running before anyone says no to you.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So like apply for the job, even if you don't think you're fully qualified, or even if you think it's a non-obvious fit.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, especially if you're bringing something to a team that they might be light on that would clearly be a value add to like the overall mission of the company.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many things that are learnable once you're in C, you know, and I think good hiring managers, in my opinion, know that and they can say, like, I've hired so many people that have been like, they can learn, like I can put them in a course and they can learn this thing, but this other thing isn't teachable.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they have this like really special thing, and I want that on my team.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I think being able to tell that story is such a which it sounds like it came very naturally to you, but for other people, they have to learn it a little bit and like get the confidence to do it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that is a lot of probably what happened there.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like looking back on it now, I'm like, how did all that happen?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that funny?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, while you're at Snap, you start working on like pretty bleeding edge tech, especially knowing like you're not a, you know, you don't have the degree, things like that.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're in augmented reality, you're in AI.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, was that a strategy?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Did you want to be in those roles or is did it just kind of happen that way?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it I wouldn't go so far as to call it a strategy because I think that's like giving me a little too much credit.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can take it.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it was very intentional in that that was just what I've always been interested in.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it has been a theme throughout my career because even, you know, my first job in tech working on Farmville, Farmville was revolutionary.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like thinking back on it, back then when when we invented the ability to like click one button and send a request to water my farm to like your your 10,000 closest friends in one click before Facebook made that world change illegal.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was, yeah, like that was the vanguard of of social gaming and it changed the world forever.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's something I've always been drawn to, like the combination or the intersection between creativity, tech, and business.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um, and that's something that I think once again, like looking back on it now, I'm like, oh wait, I see a pattern.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like this is what I've always pursued and wanted to do.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I feel very lucky that I've been able to like find these opportunities where I could combine my interests.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: How many years are you into your career now?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: 15.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: 15.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: 16 almost.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've started to notice, I think by the time you're 10 to 15 years into your career, that's when you start to be able to look back and pattern, you know, like pattern recognize for yourself.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I talk to so many people in their 20s who are like, I don't, like, there's nothing, there's no through line.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'm doing.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm worried about it, you know, whatever.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so much of me just wants to be like, just give it five, like just keep going.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And five years from now, it will all become clear somehow, as long as you're following your instincts, like the pattern will emerge.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a satisfying answer, but I find it to be pretty consistently true.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I think like the first five years of your career at the very least, like, don't worry about a pattern.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like those are the years where you're building up your skills.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't really matter if you're not like working in your dream job as long as you feel like you're learning and you're building skills that will be accretive to whatever that dream job would be.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think people now are inundated with this sort of message that, like, oh, all these people have these like super tight stories and personal brands, and like you see this so much more as a young adult or as someone early in their career, and then it's a stressor of like, well, if I don't have that, I'm behind.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually think it's so rare that that's actually the case.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times the stories people are telling aren't even representative or true, you know.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I understand the like self-imposed pressure to create that story early when really it should be like you're figuring out what you're good at and what you like and what your talents are, and and that kind of thing.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious, you know, high performance generally comes at some cost.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: What comes to mind?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you feel like all of that high performance and all of those big jobs maybe cost you over the years?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I think one thing that is very sort of like endemic to my personality and like who I am is that I am just very, very like passionate as a person and I'll like throw myself into things.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like, you know, like people talk about drinking the Kool-Aid.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I like fully drank the Kool-Aid at every company that I worked at.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was one of those people that worked there that was like always like very passionate about what I did.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Even when I worked at Goldman, I remember back then uh Lloyd Blankfein, who was the CEO at the time, he told us he was like, We are doing God's work here at Goldman Sachs.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yes, we are.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we are.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, lots to unpack there.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: But like, I'm just that's just like my personality.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And which is so magic.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, people like that are so magical.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's so magical about you is that enthusiasm and that like two feet in just attitude.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's I work best with people who are also kind of like that mindset.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I think because that's already my personality, every single company I I worked at, I was like very, very dedicated to the work.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I like threw myself into it, and um which is great for the company, which is fantastic.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I loved it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Their bottom line.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think the flip side of that is that I also very much identified with my job, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that that was a big part of my self-identity, which I mean can be neutral, it can be positive, but I think also the negative or dangerous side of that is that there are a lot of things you can't control in your job, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can't control the economy, you can't control what happens at the broader strategy level of your company, you know, unless, unless you're like, you know, further along in your career.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that can be very dangerous because you're kind of up and down with the job.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's one thing that looking back on it now, I was like way too affected by how things were going at work.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, like when things were great, I was great.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: When things weren't great, I was like really down.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like a wine link.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: The last thing I'll say about it is I think I just also probably was too invested in my work.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, especially since I was working at these like big corporations.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that one thing I am trying to do now more is kind of like finding joy and having that be a priority in my life and and kind of like telling myself that that is a um a valid and a valuable goal to have.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's possible for for people listening that have this full-time corporate job, like, do you think it's possible to find that joy in that work, or would you suggest finding joy outside to kind of supplement?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's finding joy in things that are also outside of your work because I was already finding a lot of joy in my work, but because that was my like primary focus at so many points in my life that I think I was overindexed to that.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so having um having different hobbies and having different um goals and like other priorities in your life outside of work.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is like so obvious to everyone.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like the last person in the world to like discover this.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, if it was obvious, we all wouldn't have gone through the same thing in our 20s where we all attached our identity.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I had the same experience at Pinterest.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was there for five years and I was a Pinterest employee.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: You were girl blossoming.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was Pinterest was me.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was Pinterest.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And like I, again, it was like everything I talked about outside of work.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was my friends worked there.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was this all-encompassing thing.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I moved away from that, it's so hard to unlearn.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but as you get older, I think you also learn the importance of unlearning it because especially now with so much volatility in the market and layoffs and things like that, it's becoming more and more obvious.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think people are, especially people our age, are really unlearning a lot of what we were taught.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And by our parents' generation, too.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like their identity was their job, and they stayed at companies for 30 years.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's a that is a huge input into an identity.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the millennial girlies have it the worst.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because we all came out in like this just really incredible time for big tech companies, too.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it did become our whole personality in so many ways, and things are different now.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we're having to kind of unlearn having that stable thing, and instead having to be brave and like do the work and go to therapy and figure out what we love and and all of those things.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: And those are hard things, yeah.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like they they sound like they should be easy, like they sound delightful, but it's it's hard.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, why do we have to learn how to enjoy ourselves?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I don't know.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're about to talk about your your pivot.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Just to set the stage.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so now you've left.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've left corporate, you're doing your own thing.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, was there a moment where you knew that your next step was not gonna be at another company?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe it was a series of moments.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the last job that I did before starting Tiger Sisters was working at Snapchat.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was there for a while, right?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was there for six and a half years, which especially at a time is an eternity.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is so long.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I am just very grateful for my time there because over the course of the six and a half years, I got to do so many different things.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was always in the product org, but even within the role that I had, I was able to like launch an entirely new um function.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to launch like an entirely new group.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to uh lead like hundreds of millions of dollars of MA and like incorporate that into the new function that I created.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to just like do all these things that aren't, again, like aren't in the explicit um job description of the role, maybe.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I think by the time I was hitting like around the six, six and a half months, six and a half year mark, I was very much feeling like, I think I've done everything that I want to do at this conference.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, check.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which is a lot of different things.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also candidly, I was just feeling really burnt out.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because in that six and a half years, I had never really taken a break.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'd never done the things that a lot of people do to like take an extended time off, which is get married, like have a kid.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I never did any of that.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was just there were days when I was like, why can I like barely bring myself to do anything?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like even doing the simplest task felt like an impossible thing to do.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, this is really off.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is wrong.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, something's wrong.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is not how I usually feel.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, especially as someone that is so like enthusiastic by nature.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that was when I was like, you know what, I think I need to do a sabbatical.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I asked for sabbatical.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it kind of all worked out for me that way.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um that was really, really important because having that time away from work and being able to try out all these different things that were not in tech is what gave me, I think, the confidence to be able to finally leave, which for me was a very scary thing.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you took a like you were still employed and you took a somatical.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: How did you spend that time?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did all these things that were so I didn't really like travel that much.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people are like, oh, I'm gonna see somebody.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna like travel the world.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, no, that's not.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I love to travel, but I was like, I think I'm going to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do an unpaid fashion internship.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you did?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or like what were you doing?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: At this place in LA where it's basically this like uh this like collection of couture clothing where stylists come and like celebrities come and like they come get dressed.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was basically an assistant stylist so far for like um maybe I think it was like two months.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then I also I love jewelry, and I've always in the back of my mind, I've been like, maybe I can be a jewelry designer.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, maybe I can create we all have those things.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, I could do this.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, maybe I can create my own jewelry line.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, what is the easiest way that I can try this out?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I bought all these beads and I started beading all these like necklaces and stuff, and I would give them away to my friends.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: So like I can't believe you didn't bring me a bead at your life.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm retired.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm retired from that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I missed my chance.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that it was basically my chance to like try out all these alternate careers and like alternate lives in a very lightweight way.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where um, you know, because at I love fashion and at every point in my life I've been like, oh, maybe I could work at a fashion company.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: But then it's always been like, okay, I can either work at literally this was an option, it was either working at at Sachs or Goldman Sachs.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was like Sachs one or Sachs Two.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was like, okay, I think I have to go with the finance one at the time.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think having given yourself somehow the opportunity to like try out different things in a way where you feel safe to do it, it it's really important.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And like I encourage people to seek that out.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and even if they can't take a sabbatical to do it, there are ways still.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I always try to talk about this idea of like running little experiments.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, like super low stakes.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can you go spend a day with a jewelry maker?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, take a day off, go do that, or do it on a weekend.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even just getting yourself into it for a few hours at a time, like that can be enough for you to be like, Oh, I liked this part, I didn't like this part now.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know, versus just wondering and having that kind of unanswered.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and also like opening yourself up to this different part of your like intelligence and your skills and being able to like tap into and try these different aspects of what you like.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you've said that you run Tiger Sisters like a product.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: How much have you taken from like your corporate life into what you're doing now with the podcast and with some of the other stuff?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Versus like what have you had to totally unlearn as you've entered into this new industry?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think the concept of um experimentation is something that my sister and I, who is my co-founder, um, we really lean on very heavily because both of us come from a product and a tech background.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like you said, we say we basically run Tiger Sisters, the company, as if it was a tech startup, which I think is probably very unique for a podcast and a media company.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that kind of we thought that it was going to be a um, once again, back to this theme, we thought that it was going to be our weakness that we had a disadvantage that we have zero um like connections or experience in media, but then it turned out to kind of be like weirdly a positive that we came from the tech world because I think what we've done is just experiment with pretty much everything and have like zero ego.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: So even the concept of Tiger Sisters initially we conceptualized it as a reality TV show.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of reality TV show?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we had this whole idea where it was gonna be like uh we were going to go in and help different, you know, companies and like improve their companies.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of like a little bit of Shark Tank, a little bit of the Profit Bar Rescue.
• 25:56
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:56
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or like The Prophet by Marcus Lamonas.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: We put together this entire um deck because that's what we do.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we were like shopping it around in Hollywood, and this was, you know, this was almost two years ago.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, the feedback that we got was one, um, hello, like, do you notice there are like five strikes going on in Hollywood at the time?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, read the room.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then two, they were like, respectfully, you guys are nobodies.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, we're not gonna create a multi-TV show about you.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, Yeah, sounds about right.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, wait, that's true, that's true.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: So then, you know, we we were really sad and we grieved that for maybe a couple days, and we were like, okay, reality show is not gonna happen right now.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what can we do instead if our goal is to create content to help uplift a billion people, billion women?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, what can we do that doesn't require um this like stamp of approval from Hollywood?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that you're not gonna get right now.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's the thing we're not gonna get right now, and that is a very binary outcome.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we're like, okay, let's let's make our podcast and let's just let's buy two cameras.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, actually, it was one camera.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sorry, it was just one camera.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's buy one camera, two mics, two shitty mics, sit at our um kitchen table, and then let's just do it.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just put the content out there.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's been our approach every time, where it's been like two things.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: One, do little experiments, like you said, to try something out and have no ego about it.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then two, like try to take things away from the binary.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of times I think people think in life things are very binary outcomes, like either yes or no.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's a way you can change it so that it's like, well, maybe let me try this out a little bit first.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I love that you reoriented yourself toward a goal and realized that there were multiple paths to get there, right?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like your if your goal is to uplift a billion women, there are there are hundreds of ways that you could do that.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's such a freeing, I think with career paths, that can be the same thing.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: If your goal is to uh be able to travel a lot and do work that you're energized by and work in a certain industry, there are hundreds of paths to get to that goal.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be this specific thing, and that can be so freeing for especially our generation that was raised that like you follow the path.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if that path breaks, you've you've lost, right?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's just not true.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you guys have proven that.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Where you are well on your way to this goal, just on a different path than you thought you would be.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think back to your question of like what did we have to unlearn?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was this idea of almost like relying on institutions or defaulting to institutions, right?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like so much.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Needing that permission or needing that like stamp of approval.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And like that was really hard to unlearn because that was such a big part of my career up until then, right?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was important to me coming out of school, um, coming out of undergrad.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I do want the brand name of working at Goldman.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want people to know that, or it was important to me at the time.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like letting go of that and being like, okay, we're gonna create this content, even though we have no like Hollywood company behind us.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're just gonna do it.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was something that we had to unlearn.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was for the better.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: A huge thank you to my friends at Granola for sponsoring the Good Work Talk Show.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I started using Granola as just a note taker, but now I use it for every type of meeting and conversation, from quick check-ins to creative collaborations and everything in between.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Granola is an AI notepad that transcribes meetings, whether online or in person, and it creates amazing summaries that you can chat with and you can ask follow-up questions to well after the meeting is over.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: As a busy person with a full-time job and a couple of side projects, I truly couldn't keep track of all of it without Granola.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: It helps me stay focused and stay present while still capturing all the details and the important to-dos in the background.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: I even used it on all of these episodes, so you'll be able to check the notes for each show and chat with them just like you were sitting here with us.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Cranola also has features for following up and for drafting to-do lists.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: It definitely saves me from dropping balls and it helps me do what I say I'll do.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: The best way to check it out is to try it in your next meeting.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: To read the summary of today's show and chat with that summary, you can visit granola.ai slash goodwork.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're a new granola user, you'll get three months free.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that's granola.ai slash goodwork.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we're gonna pause and we are going to ask granola what I should ask you, and we'll see what it's curious about.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is a good question, I think.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned that Tiger Sisters runs like a tech startup with heavy experimentation and no ego.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give me an example of an experiment that failed and what you learned from it?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have one uh that's just very tactical.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when I talk about experimentation, we experiment with everything.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that we've been experimenting with throughout pretty much the whole time we've had Tiger Sisters is the thumbnail for each episode.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've gone gone through so many different iterations of it, and we'll always have like a new idea and we'll just try it out, right?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's like the perfect sort of very uh closed, contained, like contained way to experiment.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the um, one of my hypotheses was like, oh, I think we should do the thumbnail in a Mr.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Beast style or like a very YouTube style where they would make the faces like like really big, they would make the heads really big, the body small, and then the eyes like really big where you look all like cartoonish.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so my sister was like, okay, sure, I'll do it.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so we did it for a couple, um, a couple uh thumbnails, a couple episodes, and we looked insane.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like it looked I need to go back and find you need to go back and find it.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Are they is it still the thumbnails, or did you change them later?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: We just left it.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm pretty sure we just left it.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: My uh financial advisor came on one episode, and he's like a very kind of like Midwest, like kind of like a buttoned up kind of guy.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we came on and we experimented with that one.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: So he looks like and so was it a failure because you were literally like, this is bizarre and I don't like this, or did it they just they didn't perform well?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it was weird all around.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was weird all around.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: People were like, What are you guys like doing?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right, sure.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a business podcast.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you making your like eyes all cartoonish?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think it was a good, it was a good experiment, and I'm glad we did it because otherwise I would have wondered.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right 100%.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's such a good example of like coming in from a different industry, learning what to take from like other people that are working in the same space, but also like staying true to not that's not always gonna be the best thing for you and your brand and your taste and your style and whatever it might be.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and your audience also, even though like it's a podcast and it's a podcast, they're so different, and audiences expect different things.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, you you could understand why I had that hypothesis.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, well, the number one, the number one YouTuber in the world does this what they do this way, is like maybe there's probably something to it.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's try it out.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so thinking about work and the kind of changing thing, a lot of things are changing right now.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: One of which is there's this trend where many professionals are becoming creators, and and some of them are doing it sort of one foot in each, where they're mostly still working, but they're doing a little creating on the side.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: There are many professionals who are leaving full-time work to go and be creators and teach and share what they've learned or guide other people.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very much, I feel like a last two years kind of development.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you obviously fit kind of nicely into this, into this trend, whether or not it was intentional.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious if someone asked you, you know, is this trend of professionals becoming creators something I should be paying attention to?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Should I leave my job and go do this?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Should I think about creating more?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what would you say?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think top line, what I would say is it's never too late to reinvent yourself.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that is something we talk about all the time on Tiger Sisters Podcast, which is that life is long and you know, as a person, you can have many different areas of interest and you're allowed to evolve.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to reinvent yourself, and the world is changing, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you shouldn't be living life as the same exact person for all 80 to 100 years of your life.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or 150.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: I say that too.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: I literally say that I think we're gonna all live till we're at least 120 or 30.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: I also say that.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'll tell you a little story later.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: But um have you found the secret?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Not you found the fountain of eternal youth.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, go ahead.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's just like a sort of top line level of like almost like reassurance.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like give yourself the permission to reinvent yourself.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's something that I had to also like really accept, like coming into this new career, because it is so different than everything else I've done before.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, like before I started doing before the first episode, we ever filmed of Tiger Sisters podcast, I had never been on camera before.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I also before that, I mean, I still am like a very private person.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never spoken about my relationships, my work experience, my mistakes, my buck-ups, my failures.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, I was just out there, just like putting it all out there to the world.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think that's almost something that a lot of people have to first accept to be able to even begin on the journey.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you think that's a requirement to be successful as a creator, especially like a professional who's becoming a creator?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because putting yourself out there requires one, a lot of vulnerability and then two, um, I would say just feeling comfortable with being cringe and just accepting or feeling like you're being cringe.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're not necessarily being cringe.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like so much of that is self-imposed.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I think again, as like millennial girlies, like we grew up in the Instagram age where everything was so perfect.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Edited and edited, and you felt like you had to be this very curated person, versus I think Gen Z and younger has a much easier time of it where they feel very comfortable just being themselves and like not wearing makeup, and you know, kind of they have a they have difficulties of their own, but I think that's like just a different set.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: So would you tell the person who's like creator curious to stay in their job or go for it?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: I would say recognize it's not that binary.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would say, I would say go for it if you believe that you are bringing something of value to the world, right?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the answer to sort of all things in capitalism because we live in a capital exchange society.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: A value exchange society, exactly.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Very well put.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so like if you believe you are bringing something of value and then you actually deliver on that, then I think you'll just be successful.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's almost like formulaic in a way.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and to get there, do your experiments.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So speaking of experiments, you talk a lot about being a multi-hyphenate by design.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: How do you decide what to take on and what to say no to?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Umpting things to to start or try or do.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the way we decide what to take on and what to experiment with is we do have a strategy.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know what how you decide.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: How I decide.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: With my sister, we have a strategy that we set out.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then also for Tiger Sisters as a company, we are very mission-driven, right?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, like the entire reason why I left my 15-year-long career to do this kind of like crazy thing to start this podcast is because I really believed in our mission, yeah, which is to uplift and help a billion women improve their lives.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was already seeing it kind of play out with my sister's content that she had been working on on her own for like five years.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's having that belief in what I'm doing and always kind of referring back to the mission and thinking, okay, this thing that we want to do, how does it ladder up to the vision?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: How does it ladder up to us achieving our mission and being able to help more women?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: I saw somewhere that you define wealth as alignment in your body and your bank account, which I'm obsessed with.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what's an example of a trade-off that maybe you've made recently and you can be as specific as you'd like, but that favored that alignment over maybe financial opportunity or something like that?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: So one thing that we did starting Tiger Sisters is that we, my sister and I sat down and we said, for the first year, we are not going to accept any brand deals, and we're not gonna worry about making a single cent, which was kind of like a big That's a huge, that's a very unique perspective on starting some starting a business.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which was a pretty big deal also because we are fully bootstrapped.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: So everything we've done has always been funded by us.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason behind that is because we were pretty sure, but we weren't a thousand percent sure yet that Tiger Sisters would be valuable to people.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we're like, we're gonna take one entire year to solely focus on the content and prove to ourselves that we have product market fit.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: And really convince ourselves that this is going to be a going concern.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, you know, in the course of that year, that's when we started hitting the charts.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we hit like number one top business podcasts, that's when we hit um number three top podcasts in the US.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think like once we started getting these indicators, we were like, something is working.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like something is hitting.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now we can start to um actually bring other brands in to join us like on this sort of journey together.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you were to give advice to an early 30s senior PM at a tech company who think that they should maybe start their own thing, what is like the general playbook you would give them for how to make that decision?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: I need to think on this for a sec.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just come spin up a playbook.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, what's so hard?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, general playbook.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like how what where did your confidence to to leave and go do your own thing come from?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you feel like somebody needs to have in order to make that choice?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think, okay, this is probably not a sexy answer, but it is most answers aren't.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Most, most honest answers aren't.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it's very practical.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the number one thing, at least for me, that I would encourage other people to do is make sure you are in a good place financially.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I would never encourage someone who is in a dicey financial situation or really like living paycheck to paycheck to be like, don't worry about that paycheck, just throw that away and just like take a risk.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Take a risk, follow your dreams.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't need to make money.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: I would never say that because that's just impractical and like dangerous.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's dangerous advice.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say it does take time, right?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like the reason why I felt comfortable 15 years in to sort of like throw away that entire old career and try something that was totally new, and I had no idea if I would be at all any good at is because I had built up that financial um stability.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so that also is a theme that we talk about all the time on Tiger Sisters.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: We say, you know, having financial independence is so, so, so important, especially for women.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because it gives you freedom.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can make whatever decisions you want to make because you're not relying on someone else to whether that be a business or an individual.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say that would be the non-negotiable that I would encourage anyone who's like in that situation to make sure that they have a solid financial footing before taking on something risky.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Great answer.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Love you.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all right, last question.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: What does good work mean to you?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what does the like idea of good work sound like or mean to you?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Good work to me is meaningful work.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Good work to me is feeling excited, not only about what you're doing in kind of the short term, but excited about where you're going long term.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that you feel happy in your work every single day, because that's not a reasonable expectation, I think.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I think good work is doing something that you're proud of and you feel like this is my contribution to the world.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Jean.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: This was so good.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: This was a really good thing.
• 43:22
  unknown: Oh my god.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that and this has been good work.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for thanks for being here.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.