The Art of Manliness - How to Turn Vices Into Career-Advancing Virtues

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.480 What if the traits you've been taught to suppress your entire career are actually the very qualities

00:00:15.640 that separate those who get what they want from those who stay stuck waiting for recognition

00:00:19.520 that never comes? Today on the show, Jenny Wood argues that most of us are living in what she 0.55

00:00:24.140 calls an invisible cage created by an overabundance of caution and that the biggest lie you've been

00:00:28.700 told in your career is to keep your head down and let your work speak for itself. Jenny is a former

00:00:33.540 Google executive who developed a career development program used by 56,000 people in nearly 100

00:00:38.140 countries. And she's the author of Wild Courage, Go After What You Want and Get It. In our

00:00:43.520 conversation, Jenny explains how traits that have a negative rap can be used for positive ends that 0.76

00:00:47.740 will advance your career. We discuss how being shameless, reckless, nosy, manipulative, obsessed,

00:00:53.700 and more to help you overcome your success hindering fears, take bolder action, and achieve

00:00:58.460 your goals. After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash wildcourage.

00:01:17.600 All right, Jenny Wood, welcome to the show.

00:01:19.880 Thanks so much for having me, Brett.

00:01:21.220 So you were a successful Google executive. While you were there, you also developed a career

00:01:27.100 development program that helped employees advance their careers by learning how to advocate for

00:01:32.760 themselves, stand out for the crowd. So you've made a career for yourself by being unapologetically

00:01:37.900 ambitious, like going after what you want. Have you always been like that? Were you like that as a kid

00:01:42.620 or was there a moment in adulthood where that switch finally flipped and you're like, all right, I'm going to

00:01:47.480 start turning my ambition into action? Ooh, there was a moment, Brett. There was a moment. And it was in

00:01:53.340 2011 on the New York City subway when I was riding the subway home from work and about 20 feet away

00:01:58.860 from me stands this really good looking guy. Gorgeous blue eyes, thick brown wavy hair, the whole works.

00:02:05.320 And even though I wanted to talk to him, something held me back. You know, like things you would normally

00:02:10.560 think about some stranger on the subway. What if he's a convicted felon? What if he's married? What if a hundred

00:02:15.100 people stare at me on this packed train? So I sit there, I do nothing while the train passes stop after stop

00:02:21.260 after stop, and his life, frankly, passes me by. But I'm so taken by him that I make a deal with the universe.

00:02:27.340 And I say, if he gets off at my stop, then maybe I'll try to strike up a conversation with him. And if not,

00:02:32.560 c'est la vie. Well, he gets off at the next stop, which was not my stop. And just as the doors are about to close,

00:02:39.260 I feel this wave of wild courage wash over me and push me out of my subway seat and off the train.

00:02:46.400 I chase to catch up with him, tap him on the shoulder. I say, excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you,

00:02:51.360 but you were on my subway and I thought you were cute. You're wearing gloves, so I can't tell if

00:02:55.780 you're wearing a wedding ring. But in the event that you're not married, any chance I could give

00:02:59.720 you my business card? And then I wait for what feels like forever for him to take my card,

00:03:05.360 thinking this was a terrible idea. But he does take the card. He calls the next day.

00:03:10.940 We go on a date a week later. And we've now been married for 11 years with two small kids who are

00:03:16.480 nine and seven. I love that story. I love how you started your book off with that story. Because

00:03:22.140 that really captures the title of the book, Wild Courage. So I mean, what were you like before that

00:03:26.020 moment? Were you sort of just someone who played it safe, tried to stay in the background?

00:03:29.280 Yeah, I was a confident Google employee on the outside, but scared and timid on the inside. Always

00:03:36.200 worried about what my boss was going to think about me walking out of our Tuesday one-on-one.

00:03:40.280 Always concerned that nobody would forget that one client presentation I flubbed. Always nervous

00:03:45.120 about when I eventually had direct reports and indirect reports as a Google exec, what they thought

00:03:49.640 about me and how they were going to score me as a leader at Google. Because there's a lot of upward

00:03:53.220 and sideways and downward feedback at Google. And it's funny, I just yesterday, I gave a keynote to

00:03:58.960 a Google team that happens to be led by the guy who hired me at Google almost two decades ago.

00:04:05.120 And he's like, Jenny, it's so interesting and wonderful to see you come into your own. Because

00:04:08.800 when you first started, you had a hard time having a perspective. You had a hard time sharing your

00:04:14.440 thoughts. I knew that you had smart ideas, but you were too nervous and timid and held back to share

00:04:20.060 those out loud for business impact. And I was like, wow, it's so interesting. Because sometimes I think

00:04:24.820 people push back on me and they're like, it seems like you were just born this way, Jenny.

00:04:27.980 You seem really confident. You could sell ice to Eskimos. And it was such an interesting

00:04:32.440 moment when I was doing this talk and getting this feedback from the guy at Google who hired me to

00:04:38.280 realize like, yeah, I was not born this way. And you don't have to be either. You might not be a

00:04:43.100 subway chaser, but wherever you are sitting right now, there is something that you want.

00:04:47.840 And wild courage is what closes the gap between what you want and what you get. And it's the set of

00:04:52.780 tools that help you go after those things and get them. And it can be learned. It is not an innate

00:04:57.920 skill. It takes practice. It takes reps. It takes building the muscle of wild courage.

00:05:02.720 As you described yourself in the book before you made this jump to wild courage, you remind me of a

00:05:08.140 like, I was like this in high school too. Correct me if I'm wrong. This sort of describes you how you

00:05:12.240 were in high school and college. Like you worked hard. You were quietly ambitious. You kind of just

00:05:16.900 like, I'm going to work really hard, do my best. And then I'll just wait for people to notice.

00:05:21.860 Yeah. And then if people notice me, then okay, that's fine. But if they don't, I'm just going

00:05:26.420 to stay in the background. I think there's a lot of people like that. They're really conscientious.

00:05:30.120 They do good work, but they wait for people to notice before they actually put themselves out there.

00:05:36.820 Absolutely. I was like that. I would almost take it a step further and say that I was really

00:05:41.680 hesitant to stand out, even to acknowledge my own ambitions or share them.

00:05:45.220 Yeah. You have this great line in the book that says, most existential anxiety in life

00:05:49.900 isn't about a lack of ambition, but an overabundance of caution.

00:05:54.680 So the book's called Wild Courage. What makes wild courage wild?

00:05:59.340 Well, wild courage consists of nine traits that create the bars of an invisible cage that keep

00:06:05.800 you small, that keep you quiet, that keep you following instead of leading. And my goodness,

00:06:10.940 do they raise eyebrows? They are weird, selfish, shameless, nosy, obsessed, manipulative. That's 1.00

00:06:19.520 a spicy one. Brutal, reckless, and bossy. And those are not traits we typically think we want

00:06:26.940 to aspire to. So that is the wild piece of it. Okay. So your traits of wild courage are weird,

00:06:32.380 selfish, shameless, nosy, obsessed, manipulative, brutal, reckless, and bossy. And what you do in 0.99

00:06:40.340 the book is you reclaim these words, which they typically have a bad rap, and you reframe them

00:06:45.580 with new definitions and lay out how they can be used for positive ends. And you say people can use

00:06:51.820 these traits to overcome the three fears you think hold people back. It's the fear of failure,

00:06:57.240 the fear of uncertainty, and the fear of judgment of others. So let's talk about some of these traits.

00:07:01.780 The first one is weird. This is all about standing out. Why is learning to stand out

00:07:07.100 such an essential skill and trait to develop if you want success in life?

00:07:11.200 Yeah. Well, I mean, the world is just too busy and competitive for you to be invisible and make

00:07:17.780 a dent in your career or in your life. So weird is about having the courage to stand out and be

00:07:25.620 authentic because within your so-called weirdness lie your greatest strength. So hone every ounce of

00:07:30.640 weird you've got. And that might be what I call playing it hot, which is respectfully disagreeing

00:07:35.900 with your boss in a one-on-one or sitting in the front row of your VP's presentation or being the

00:07:40.520 first person to raise your hand and ask them a question. Or actually, you referenced this program

00:07:45.560 I started at Google called Own Your Career. That was kind of weird. I played it hot. I did not ask for

00:07:50.920 any permission. This was not my full-time job. I ran an operations team that sat between sales and

00:07:55.840 engineering and helped drive billions of revenue for the company annually. But people would come

00:08:00.020 to me for mentorship. And this guy came to me and he was asking, you know, it was like one of the many

00:08:05.560 people who came to me for mentorship and was asking, hey, how do you navigate entry level to

00:08:10.020 executive here? And I was like, okay, let me just scale this. Let me write down 10 tips that made me

00:08:15.500 successful here. Everything from navigating politics to stakeholder management to influence skills

00:08:19.980 to getting promoted. And I'll just put together like a quick training. I'm sure that, you know,

00:08:25.280 maybe 30 people will come. Well, 2,000 people came to that first training and that grew into Own Your

00:08:30.280 Career, which was used by 56,000 people in nearly 100 countries. But here's the thing. I was playing

00:08:35.260 it hot. I was being weird. I was not in HR. I was not in people operations. I just decided to go for it

00:08:42.980 without asking for permission from anybody or running it up the flagpole only for it to die in committee,

00:08:49.160 right, of approvals. I didn't ask HR. I didn't ask legal. I didn't ask comms. And then all of a sudden,

00:08:54.280 I was writing emails that went to 56,000 people at Google. So it's because I played it hot. I just went

00:08:59.080 for it and I begged forgiveness, not permission. And there are so many smart, talented people sitting

00:09:02.960 on brilliant ideas that never see the light of day because they're waiting for permission or waiting

00:09:08.000 for perfection, quite frankly. And they don't just start and put something out there like 10 bullets

00:09:12.720 on a document, hoping that maybe, you know, two dozen people will come. And then it ends up

00:09:16.960 being a lot bigger than that. All right. So being weird is about embracing your quirks,

00:09:21.680 sharpening them into strengths, standing out in a good way. It's all about leaning into what makes

00:09:26.680 you unique. And then playing it hot is a stance towards life where you show up with your weirdness

00:09:33.580 with boldness and energy instead of, you know, trying to play it cool and blend in. There's risk

00:09:39.660 with this though, with playing it hot, because people could just think you're weird in an off-putting

00:09:45.240 way or, you know, you might step on some toes, but the benefits will typically outweigh

00:09:49.960 the risk.

00:09:51.120 Yeah. Let me touch on that for a moment because this is critically important. When I was launching

00:09:55.400 this book, you know, Kim Scott was a big mentor of mine. She's like, Jenny, this is your time

00:09:59.240 to beg, right? This might fall a little bit more into the selfish or shameless trait, but

00:10:03.600 she's like, this is your time to beg. I had built relationships with a lot of authors and influencers

00:10:07.620 and I asked maybe a hundred of them to help promote the book, whether it was sharing it

00:10:12.480 on social media or on their blog, or if I could be on their podcast, or it's actually probably

00:10:17.680 closer to 200 or whether they'd write a newsletter about it. And there was one very, very famous

00:10:23.120 author. And if I said the name, I will not for their privacy, but if I said the name, every

00:10:26.700 single one of you would know it. And this person not only said no, but also ended our friendship

00:10:32.240 and our mentorship relationship. And man, did it sting. I lost sleep over it. This was

00:10:37.260 just a couple of days before a pub date. And it was a time when I needed to not be losing

00:10:41.000 sleep and it stung. But if I had used that rejection as an indication to just start playing

00:10:47.420 it cool and not asking for help or not being weird or not shamelessly putting myself out

00:10:52.640 there, then this book would not have been nearly as successful as it has been. And so even

00:10:58.000 though the outcome wasn't what I would have wanted, and it really felt like a punch in the

00:11:01.780 gut, and it still hurts to this day. It still hurts to be told no from someone you deeply

00:11:06.100 respect and admire because you've played it too hot. But it doesn't mean that the decision

00:11:10.840 was bad. It was just the outcome that wasn't ideal. And so I still carry that play it hot

00:11:15.080 mentality with me because 80% of the other people said yes, we'd be thrilled to help.

00:11:20.080 And then 20% said no respectfully. And this was like the one outlier who said no in a way

00:11:24.400 that was painful for me. But it's okay because we push past those painful moments and we keep

00:11:28.800 doing great things. Besides playing it hot, another way you suggest you can be more weird

00:11:34.300 is sharpening elbows. What do you mean by that? Yeah. Well, this is an example of when I was at

00:11:40.720 Google and the most senior leadership team, kind of the equivalent of the C-suite of this org of

00:11:45.280 Google, was meeting in London to decide a reorg and the fates of the people below them. Now, the people

00:11:50.120 below them, myself included, were not invited to London for the actual meetings. But lo and behold,

00:11:55.760 a bunch of us showed up in London to rub elbows. That's what I call like sharpen our elbows to be

00:12:02.480 in the same proximity, to have coffee chats, to be present. And again, like if you want to be

00:12:07.220 invisible, you can, but it's not going to help your career because being in the same room,

00:12:12.120 if you're not invited, you know, if you don't have a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,

00:12:15.280 as they say. But I think just showing up makes a big difference. It's like the classic line,

00:12:19.460 80% is just showing up. And it was astonishing who decided to fly to London and who decided to not

00:12:24.920 and what the outcomes looked like. Because politics are real. Relationships are real. And

00:12:28.700 again, it goes back to the biggest lie you've been told in your career is just keep your head

00:12:33.040 down. Your work will speak for itself. It won't. At the end of each chapter, you have a section on

00:12:37.060 what you call trait traps. And this is how the quality you're talking about in that section

00:12:42.860 can turn into a weakness. And for the weirdness section, you say the trait trap there is when you

00:12:48.300 start thinking of weirdness as being rude, annoying, just obnoxious. So the takeaway for

00:12:56.320 weird is that you want to be weird in a good way. Just by doing the things that other people aren't

00:13:01.920 doing, doing things that might be unusual or unusually bold, you're just standing out from

00:13:08.540 the crowd, but it's in a good way. You're not being obnoxious about it. Let's talk about another

00:13:13.200 trait and that is selfish. Nobody wants to be known as selfish, but let's talk about this first.

00:13:19.700 How can selflessness be harmful? Because I think that's a good way to start this question.

00:13:25.440 Yeah. Well, I mean, if you give everybody a leg up at your own expense, you'll end up getting

00:13:30.320 trampled. So start showing up for yourself. I redefined this as the courage to be your own

00:13:35.220 champion. And even when I was running the Own Your Career program, I feel like I took my eye off the

00:13:42.120 ball on my core job a little bit. And I was almost over-delegating to the leaders who reported to me.

00:13:48.760 And then I had one conversation with my manager who's basically like, Jenny, get your eye back on

00:13:53.660 the ball on your core job. And then it even meant that I had to kind of reshift some of the priorities

00:13:58.160 to either peers who I delegated to or direct reports because I had to look out for myself.

00:14:03.520 I needed to maintain a good performance score so that I could continue bringing this good work to

00:14:06.960 the world. And it's tough. It's tough, especially as a leader, to be selfish and say, my career

00:14:13.860 matters too. But at the end of the day, I deeply believe that as much as your manager is supporting

00:14:19.660 you and your career, they're going to put their career first. And they should because if we're not

00:14:26.240 showing up for ourselves, then who is? And for the parents out there, you might say, oh, well,

00:14:31.700 if I were to ask you the question, who's more important than you? Start showing up for yourself.

00:14:36.120 And if you were to say, oh, my child is more important than I am. But does your child need

00:14:39.640 a martyr who's exhausted and depleted and hungry and sleep deprived? Like, no, go to that yoga class,

00:14:45.640 go to that golf, you know, Sunday regular session that you do with your buddies and take the time

00:14:51.240 that you need so that you can replenish and show up for the people in your life in a thoughtful and

00:14:54.820 intentional way. All right. So being selfish actually allows you to serve better. Yeah. Yeah.

00:14:59.960 So what does positive selfishness look like for you? Well, it's saying yes to the big and no to the

00:15:05.320 small, at least in a work context, but also in a life context. So what's big? The Q2 strategy project

00:15:12.360 that your C-suite really cares about. What's big? Improving customer satisfaction by 12% quarter over

00:15:18.480 quarter. Again, in a work context, what's small? Being the 18th person to reply all on the happy

00:15:24.360 birthday Jimmy email. Give him a high five, you know, when you see him at the water fountain.

00:15:28.580 What's small? Attending every single meeting where you neither add value nor derive value. And how often do we

00:15:34.440 do that? And what's small? Being the person who always takes notes in the meeting or always raises

00:15:38.500 your hand to lead the wellbeing pillar. Like, yes, these things are good for community, for culture

00:15:42.720 building. Yes, it's nice to occasionally plan the company picnic for the summer. But if you did it the

00:15:47.980 last several times, if you took notes the last several meetings, then those small actions constitute

00:15:53.540 what I call nap work, not actually promotable. So avoid more than 10% nap work because no one ever gets

00:16:02.660 promoted for being responsive to email. And yes, do a little bit of it. But if you notice that

00:16:07.080 you're dialing up to 30%, 40%, and granted, this stuff can be easy, it can be simple. Sometimes it

00:16:12.640 avoids the big scary projects of, you know, the customer satisfaction increase. But if you do too

00:16:18.300 much of it, it's just not going to serve you well. So I say don't nap at the office because you want to

00:16:23.900 do the big work that moves the business. Because what moves the business is what moves your career.

00:16:28.220 And same thing in your life at home also, right? Like, what are the things that you need to respond

00:16:32.500 to on a given day? And what are the small things you can avoid? And maybe it is not responding to

00:16:36.820 every text that comes in, right? Yeah, that nap work, I can see that can be a trap for people in

00:16:41.520 their career. Because often nap work, it's easy, and it's concrete, and it's actionable. It's like,

00:16:46.340 oh, I'm doing something. But if you look at it, it doesn't really move the bottom line on things.

00:16:51.380 And so I see someone put someone in a position where like, I just do so much for the company.

00:16:54.960 No one appreciates what I do. But you're doing stuff that, you know, it's nice, but it's like

00:17:00.000 not necessary. Yeah. I mean, it invites more work, but it doesn't invite more responsibility.

00:17:05.180 Yeah. So say yes to the big, no to the small. But a lot of people have a hard time saying no.

00:17:12.440 Any advice for people who have a hard time saying no to that sort of rink-a-dink stuff because

00:17:18.660 it makes them feel bad? Yeah. So two tools are the agenda of vendor and the power postponed.

00:17:24.140 Because nobody wants to say no and then feel like a jerk. But there are so many ways you can say no 0.97

00:17:28.980 and not feel like a jerk. In fact, I do have a freebie if people want it at itsjennywood.com 0.96

00:17:33.440 slash say no. It's eight scripts, tools, tricks to say no to meetings, projects, and favors. Because

00:17:37.980 we get them all the time and we feel guilty. We don't have the wild courage to say no. And then

00:17:42.800 sometimes a yes turns into like 20 other yeses, right? It's like, can you do this quick thing? Okay,

00:17:46.900 cool. Now can you, you know, schedule this thing as a result of it? Oh, we've got to reschedule it. Now

00:17:50.980 we've got to, you know, inform this one person. So like one little yes can turn into 20 different

00:17:55.620 yeses. But you can use the agenda of vendor, which is, you know, let's say for example,

00:18:00.980 someone asks you to hop on a call. You could say, I'd love to get a better sense of, you know,

00:18:06.940 what you want to cover. Could you send a quick agenda first? I mean, if you push back and that's

00:18:10.560 why it's the avenger, the agenda of vendor, if you ask them for an agenda, they're going to have to

00:18:15.060 think real hard if you really need to have that meeting. And by the time they put together that

00:18:19.420 three, five point agenda, they might just realize that can be solved over email, right? How many

00:18:24.200 times have we been in a meeting that really should have been an email? And then another one is the

00:18:28.700 power postpone. So I'm planning to take a sabbatical coming up here for six weeks. And so that's a natural

00:18:34.220 power postpone where I say, I can't meet now, but I can meet in about eight weeks. And then sometimes it

00:18:40.080 just resolves itself. Or if they really, really want to have that meeting or you have you on that

00:18:44.480 project, then they can wait. But oftentimes it just disappears. And those are two of the eight

00:18:49.780 very practical tools I share with people to thoughtfully say no without feeling like a jerk. 0.99

00:18:55.460 Yeah. The asking for an agenda, I've used that a lot in my career. So I'll get people who will email 0.88

00:19:00.260 me like, Hey, you know, I got this thing. I'd love to hop on the phone to talk about how we can

00:19:04.680 partner together. And it's like, what does that mean? Like, okay. So I send an email like, Hey,

00:19:09.240 this sounds great. What are some concrete ideas you have right now on how we can partner?

00:19:13.260 And then they're like, Oh, I don't know. Okay. Well, you know, once you have some ideas,

00:19:16.980 maybe we can hop on the phone then. But when they're asked is kind of vague, it's like, well,

00:19:20.660 okay, I'm going to have you be a little more specific so we can figure out if there's actually

00:19:23.520 something here for us to do. Yeah, definitely. Or another version of it is, you know, I'd get tons

00:19:27.460 of people who'd reach out to me and say, Hey, you know, my nephew would love a job at Google,

00:19:31.320 right? It's always someone's nephew would love a job at Google. Another strategy here is yes,

00:19:37.080 if or yes, when yes, we can do that. If you put together three job wrecks that look interesting

00:19:42.900 to you, or yes, we can do this when you send me your idea of like the perfect job or something

00:19:47.120 like that. So again, it's similar to the agenda vendor, you're not specifically asking for an

00:19:50.560 agenda. But you're saying yes, we can do it if you do this or when you do that. So yes, if or yes,

00:19:55.400 when to also see if that meeting really needs to happen. Another tactic you have for being more

00:20:00.920 selfish in a positive way is win W I N N. What's that? I love this one. I'm so glad you're bringing 1.00

00:20:07.620 it up. So this is play to win what I need now W I N N as you said. And this is about being selfish

00:20:15.140 about how circumstances might change. And there's this wonderful story about a session singer for

00:20:20.880 Pink Floyd named Claire Torrey. A session singer is someone who is hired for a very small fee to come in

00:20:26.660 and sing backup vocals or something as part of a track for one individual song for a band.

00:20:32.340 So in London, Claire Torrey came in, she was paid 30 pounds to sing these backup vocals for the great

00:20:38.920 gig in the sky on a Pink Floyd album. And so she collected her 30 pound fee and went home and didn't

00:20:44.580 even know that the song had made the album until it came out. Well, it turns out that album went 14 times

00:20:51.380 platinum, a little bit more than, and her vocals are legendary. If you know the song,

00:20:56.520 it makes the song. And so she played to win. She said, you know, what I need now is to sue Pink Floyd

00:21:03.700 and ask for a much significant part of the royalties and a songwriting credit. And then,

00:21:11.120 you know, she was really smart and selfish to do that. And Pink Floyd was smart to settle out of

00:21:16.080 court for an undisclosed sum. So we know what might that look like for you. Maybe your company has just

00:21:21.200 gone through a reorg or layoffs and you're now doing the job of two people and you're overworked and

00:21:26.200 overwhelmed and feel like you're underpaid. Well, what I need now might be giving yourself the

00:21:31.800 advice that you might give to a friend, which is put together three slides, go to your manager,

00:21:36.400 explain the work that you're doing, ask for a new title, ask for a raise. And we selflessly say

00:21:41.980 things like, Oh, but I'm just happy to have a job. Or, you know, what about Alan and Sarah and

00:21:46.900 Louisa? Like they're doing hard work too. What about their raises? Well, being selfish is standing up for

00:21:51.500 yourself. And sometimes what I need now is the permission we need to recognize that it's okay

00:21:56.600 to ask for something when the circumstances have changed. Yeah. I mean, companies or CEOs,

00:22:02.960 they play to win. Heck yeah, they do. And that's why they're so successful. Yeah. You know, they never

00:22:08.220 think, well, you know, we promised this guy this job for a long time. It's like, well, okay. The

00:22:11.800 situation now is like, we're losing money and we had to make cuts to keep this company afloat. That's the

00:22:16.980 situation now. So we got to make the cuts. I'm sorry. It's not personal or anything. They're playing to win.

00:22:21.700 Yeah. One of my best managers, Mike, said to me in a one-on-one when I was really being a

00:22:26.660 workaholic and not taking any vacation. He's like, Jenny, you are capped out on vacation.

00:22:31.240 When is your next vacation going to be? I'm worried you're going to burn out. And I said,

00:22:36.000 I know, Mike, I'm just so passionate about this project and this new team. And I just,

00:22:40.380 I love Google so much. And he was like, I think about my saying this and like, what a ridiculous, 0.96

00:22:45.480 it's not that Google's an amazing company. Like, don't, don't get me wrong. But what a funny thing to

00:22:49.380 say to justify me not taking vacation. And I will never forget his retort back. He said,

00:22:54.680 Jenny, that is great. But I want you to remember that Google doesn't love you back.

00:23:00.500 And just like you said, Brett, like they're going to be selfish. Any organization is going

00:23:04.100 to be smartly selfish if there's a financial crisis and they have to have a riff, a reduction

00:23:08.140 in force. If they need to shift priorities and take a big project away from you. If they need to

00:23:14.020 freeze hiring, if they need to pause promotions or give, you know, lower raises or bonuses,

00:23:19.320 like they will be selfish left, right, and center. So you can be selfish too. But there's this power

00:23:23.720 imbalance, right? Where, you know, we look to our companies or we think that our boss's boss has so

00:23:28.020 much authority and that we can't ask for what we want. But the best leaders, the future leaders are

00:23:33.380 the ones who ask for what they want because you're displaying future leadership skills.

00:23:36.980 Are there any trait traps with selfishness?

00:23:40.900 Yeah. I mean, you want to, with all these traits, be expanding the pie and not redividing the pie.

00:23:47.040 So I do advise people to look for ways that are mutually beneficial as opposed to,

00:23:53.920 you know, for example, when I needed to be a little bit more selfish about my career and kind

00:23:57.080 of get my eye back on the ball, if I was going to insert myself more in a project that I delegated

00:24:02.480 to a peer or a direct report, I would think about something else that they could do that would bolster

00:24:06.760 their profile as well.

00:24:09.720 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:24:14.440 And now back to the show. All right, let's talk about shameless and shameless. This is all about 0.94

00:24:19.480 leaning into your strengths and not being afraid of showcasing them. It's all about having some

00:24:23.400 swagger. Yeah.

00:24:24.860 What do you think holds people back from promoting themselves?

00:24:28.660 I mean, I think that this is the biggest challenge with wild courage. I do. I think that people feel

00:24:34.320 insecure. They feel rife with imposter syndrome. They feel like they don't deserve it as much as

00:24:39.300 somebody else. They feel like they don't have the skills that somebody else has. There was a moment

00:24:42.520 in a meeting that I was leading where there were maybe 20 people in the room and this guy came in

00:24:47.300 and he's like, this is a shameless plug, but I put together this spreadsheet that might help you.

00:24:51.280 And he shared it over the group chat. The emojis go flying. The chat explodes. Oh my gosh,

00:24:56.700 this is going to be so helpful. This is going to save me 20, 30 minutes every time I need to

00:25:01.440 create this project proposal for clients. And yet he led with, this is a shameless plug.

00:25:07.420 And it's like, what's the shame in that? You're sharing something useful and helpful and a time

00:25:11.780 saver for people. And yet we hesitate to share our wins. And I think one of the most helpful

00:25:17.360 tactics here is to make it consistent, make it a system. If for example, you shared every Monday,

00:25:23.400 what I call a shameless Monday email with your boss with four bullets, two things you're proud of that

00:25:28.620 you did last week and two things you're excited about for next or for this coming week, that is

00:25:33.500 so powerful. First of all, it makes it a lot easier to put together your performance review at the end

00:25:37.420 of the quarter and your accomplishment bullets. But it also just systematizes talking about your wins

00:25:43.240 and it becomes more natural. It becomes more of an update. There's a huge positive externality of

00:25:49.200 then they might CC their boss. Or if you're a leader, you could share this with your team and CC your

00:25:53.740 own boss. And then you're sharing with your team, your priorities, which people love to know what their

00:25:57.080 boss is up to that day. So the shameless Monday email can be really effective as you lean into

00:26:02.520 your strengths and not be afraid to showcase them. I think that's a powerful idea because your boss

00:26:07.180 has no clue what you're doing. He might have like a little bit of a clue, but he probably doesn't know

00:26:11.960 everything. So this just makes it more explicit. Yeah, definitely. You also read the power portfolio.

00:26:16.780 What's that? Oh, I love the power portfolio. So the power portfolio is made up of your power assets.

00:26:22.200 And just like a financial portfolio, you want to have a mix of soft skills and hard skills or

00:26:28.300 of business skills and people skills like you'd want to have a mix in your financial portfolio of

00:26:31.920 stocks and bonds. So these are the three strengths you have or the three things that you bring to the

00:26:36.580 table that can move the business forward. So I had a coachee named Martina and she came to me with 0.95

00:26:42.720 three power assets. She said, mine are communication, organization, and supporting others on launches.

00:26:49.820 And these were okay, but they needed tweaking because again, we want a mix of business and

00:26:54.900 people skills. So yes, people skills matter, but managers and leaders want to know what business

00:27:00.740 problems you'll solve because that's what their boss is grading them on. So that's why you want to

00:27:04.860 diversify your power portfolio and aim for a mix here. So we tweaked it. So communication became

00:27:09.980 executive communication. Organization became project and program management, which she was phenomenal at

00:27:15.820 and supporting others on launches became go to market strategy. Again, same ideas, different word

00:27:20.840 choice, higher impact, shameless, right? But it's just being more, more powerful in your language.

00:27:27.640 And again, like organization versus project and program management does have a very different

00:27:34.000 je ne sais quoi. To me, organization sounds weak. It sounds feminine. Not that that's a bad thing, 1.00

00:27:39.480 but you know, in the context of wanting to show your leadership skills and show more of the value

00:27:44.740 you bring to the customer project and program management just sounds a lot more powerful.

00:27:48.940 And so we strengthen them by doing that exercise. But even aside from your specific language choice,

00:27:54.960 a lot of people I think don't know their strengths at all or their talents and can't articulate them

00:28:01.580 in a bit of an elevator pitch. Like some people might just draw a blank. If I say, what are the three

00:28:06.240 things that I mean, often I will say execs draw a blank when I say, what are the three things you bring

00:28:10.500 to your team? And they really have to think about it. So it requires writing down maybe 20 things

00:28:14.900 that you think you are pretty good at, things you'd love to do as a child, things that, you know,

00:28:19.300 you've helped move the business forward on in the past. It might require bringing them to a coach or

00:28:23.520 a mentor or a boss and triangulating it with other people think, and then you can whittle it down to

00:28:27.480 three. And I imagine after you whittle it down to the three, you need to figure out what are some

00:28:31.780 things that like concrete things I can show that showcases that I have these traits,

00:28:37.340 like be able to show that to people. Hey, I'm great at this thing. Here's what I've done.

00:28:42.700 Oh, absolutely. Like if you're talking about these in a resume or again, an accomplishment bullet,

00:28:47.320 preparing for a performance review or promotion, you want to use what I call ROI, not the classic ROI

00:28:52.600 return on investment, though this does give you return on career investment. It's role, objective,

00:28:57.340 and impact. What was your role in this go-to-market strategy? What was the objective? You wanted to,

00:29:02.080 you know, launch the product with, you know, 10 million users in the first year. And what was the

00:29:06.540 impact? You exceeded that goal and launched it to 11 million users in the first year. So,

00:29:10.880 and also double your numbers in any context, double your numbers, or even going back to,

00:29:15.800 and when I say double your numbers, I mean, you know, in that example, I used 10 million,

00:29:19.220 maybe you could say 10 million by day 90, like use physical numbers. It is so much more powerful.

00:29:25.520 They don't have to be fancy, like revenue growth percentage or, or actual dollars. It could be,

00:29:31.340 I cut this email sequence down for onboarding new clients from five emails to three, making it more

00:29:37.760 efficient. Or I'm 70% of the way through the fall athleisure line competitive analysis, right?

00:29:44.720 Even just saying I'm 70% or I cut this down from five emails to three has a big impact on showing

00:29:51.280 the concrete, the tangible value that you bring to the table. So double your numbers anywhere you can,

00:29:57.760 whether it's in your, your shameless Monday email or a resume or accomplishment bullets or your,

00:30:02.960 your power portfolio, when you're talking about your strengths in the specific situations with ROI,

00:30:08.520 where you demonstrated these power assets.

00:30:10.880 How are you being shameless with the promotion of this book you're doing?

00:30:14.500 Well, a big part of promoting the book is having companies buy the book in bulk. So there are books

00:30:20.180 that are sold one at a time and there are books that are sold 500 at a time because this book is so

00:30:25.020 much about, it's about wild courage in all areas of life, but there's a bias toward professional

00:30:29.680 wild courage and really thriving within your company, within your organization and not saying,

00:30:35.680 Hey, go quit your job and, you know, be a solopreneur, be an entrepreneur. It's really helping you, um,

00:30:41.380 feel engaged, feel happy, feel successful, feel motivated within your organization, which companies

00:30:46.180 should love and want to buy. Right? So I think this has the potential to be the kind of book

00:30:49.800 that people buy 500 at the time. Um, so how am I being shameless? I recognized that opportunity

00:30:55.760 and I sent about 300 emails to leaders, friends, acquaintances, you know, second degree connections,

00:31:02.460 subject line. Are you interested in buying 200 copies of wild courage? And then I put a bunch

00:31:08.940 of details. I'd happy to do a 20 minute complimentary fireside chat if you did. And I sent the first

00:31:13.720 hundred and Brett, I thought that by the end of the day, those checks would just be rolling in for

00:31:19.300 those bulk purchases. But as it turns out, the budget is not always there. The timing's not

00:31:23.940 always right. There was a lot of ghosting, a lot of rejection. So shameless in this context is having

00:31:29.580 the courage to just keep going despite all of that rejection. And, uh, and this was a different than

00:31:36.880 the rejection of the one person who cut off our friendship. This was like rejection at scale because

00:31:41.640 there were so many people. I mean, I probably didn't hear back from 90% of the people in that first

00:31:45.720 hundred. So what did I do? I tweaked the offering rather than 200 copies in the subject line. I put

00:31:50.940 50 copies rather than overwhelming them with too much information about the details of how this

00:31:55.560 partnership could work and me coming to do a fireside chat. I whittled it down to just a few

00:31:59.540 sentences. So you can use that rejection and tweak, dial your shamelessness up and down to what might

00:32:06.120 better appeal to the audience. Well, this kind of ties in nicely to one of the other traits are

00:32:09.700 being reckless. Like you've been reckless with your being shameless. Yeah. Let's talk about that. 0.78

00:32:14.580 What does healthy recklessness look like? Well, it's the courage to err on the side of action

00:32:19.060 because better to learn from your mistakes than waste time predicting the consequences of every

00:32:24.660 decision. Think fast and fearless. And if you're on the fence, do it. And for all of you overthinkers

00:32:30.500 out there, for all of you pro con list makers, and like me, left brain thinkers who are in a lot of

00:32:35.960 analysis paralysis, just thinking about like, what's the worst that could happen, right? I mean,

00:32:40.480 even leaving Google for me took a lot of recklessness. And it was hard for me to get to

00:32:46.260 the point where I knew I wanted to leave. And that was a moment where I felt my eyes fluttering closed

00:32:50.060 when I was driving my son back home from choir practice because I had just taken on too much.

00:32:54.640 I had my day job. I was running the Own Your Career program. There was all this external interest

00:32:58.220 that was budding about my work, including this book. And I was also trying to be a wife and a mom.

00:33:02.620 It's like five roles. And I was exhausted. I was struggling with lowercase a anxiety.

00:33:07.740 I was oftentimes up between 2 and 5 a.m. And I just was totally sleep deprived and physically,

00:33:14.920 emotionally, and mentally unwell. And so I reached the moment where I felt my eyes closing as I was

00:33:20.180 driving Ari home from choir that it was probably time to go. But it took me about 12 to 18 months to

00:33:25.840 muster the courage to do it. And that's because I wasn't reckless enough. And so I think I was caught

00:33:31.460 in truths and tales. Truths are fact. They're verifiable facts. You know, this microphone I'm

00:33:36.720 speaking into is black. I'm, you know, holding a piece of paper in my hand. But tales are the

00:33:42.580 stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the facts. And so part of recklessness is separating

00:33:47.820 the truths from the tales. And so I really struggled with that leaving Google. You know,

00:33:51.600 the tales I told myself were, I'm going to have no identity if I leave Google. Another tale,

00:33:55.840 what if we run out of money and have to move out of our house in Boulder by all the trails that I

00:33:59.520 love so dearly? Another tale I told myself as my parents are going to be disappointed in me

00:34:03.820 because I'm the breadwinner for my family. But then when I broke it down to actual truths in that

00:34:09.500 situation, a truth would be, yes, I'm not going to get a paycheck every other week with the Google

00:34:14.780 logo on it. A truth would be, you know, I can find other ways to have a new identity. A truth would

00:34:19.860 be my parents have always supported me and are supportive of me leaving Google as well. So that helps you be

00:34:25.700 reckless when you separate the truths and the tales and really break it down to fact versus fiction.

00:34:30.720 So another thing you talk about in this reckless section is this react framework. What's that and

00:34:35.380 how can that help you overcome failures so you can maintain that bias towards action?

00:34:41.120 Yeah, well, sometimes failures are not big colossal, you know, I lost the project or I lost the deal.

00:34:48.680 Sometimes a failure is just a moment that happens that's cringeworthy during the day. And

00:34:52.520 we've all had those. And one of mine was when I sent an email intended for six people to I think

00:34:59.660 it was 23,000 people at the time. That's how big Own Your Career was at the time. And I sent it instead

00:35:05.640 of to the volunteers working on Own Your Career, I sent it to the entire Own Your Career alias.

00:35:10.260 And Brett, this was an unintelligible email. It was just a subject line that was three sentences long

00:35:16.220 with nothing in the body. And it was a testimonial of someone who had said they loved the Own Your Career

00:35:21.520 program, and that they'd gotten promoted as a result of it. And so the subject line was just

00:35:27.180 Titi Akinsanmi, which is the person's name, but it's a really unusual name. And then I had typos

00:35:32.100 in the subject line. And this went to 23,000 people, including many in the Google C-suite.

00:35:36.160 So I was mortified. Like I press send and then I slowly dragged the mouse to the unsend only to

00:35:42.320 not get there in time. And here's what happened. So react is how I overcame that horrible moment of

00:35:49.180 mini failure. It stands for recognize, empower, apologize, celebrate, and trust. Recognize that

00:35:56.860 not everything you do will be perfect. E, empower yourself to own it quickly and clean it up. Take

00:36:01.240 a deep breath. It happens to everyone. And so I really just had to like put on my big girl pants

00:36:06.300 and say, I can clean it up. I can recover from this. And then I did. A is for apologize. I directly

00:36:11.800 apologized to Titi. She was not intending for her feedback about Own Your Career to get broadcast

00:36:16.440 to 23,000 people. C is for celebrate. Celebrate the unexpected goodness that comes out of a mistake.

00:36:22.640 I got hundreds of pings and emails back and not a single one of them said, you jerk. I can't believe 0.99

00:36:28.340 you distracted me with this nonsensical subject line. No, everybody was checking in on me. Everybody

00:36:33.880 wanted to take care of me. Everybody wanted to help me and empathize with me. And they all said things

00:36:38.660 like, Jenny, I promise nobody cares about this like you do. Nobody's paying attention. Everybody

00:36:44.020 understands this. It happens to everyone. They were so empathetic. So that's celebrating the

00:36:48.000 unexpected goodness that comes out of a mistake. And that's also the T is trusting that your fellow

00:36:52.820 employees will have your back. And by the way, the other part of C, celebrate the unexpected goodness

00:36:57.640 is I wrote up this React framework. I then shared it with the whole Own Your Career alias and said,

00:37:02.060 here's how I recovered from this mistake. And it ended up being the most popular tip of all time that I

00:37:07.240 had ever sent. So it just goes to show you that you can make lemonade out of any lemon. And that's the

00:37:13.100 React framework. All right. So reckless, just take more action, have a bias towards action,

00:37:17.360 and you can overcome those little setbacks and failures. It's not a big deal. It's not going to

00:37:21.180 be a career ender for you. Another trait is being nosy. And I love this section because you start off

00:37:27.180 that section talking about how your grandmother was nosy and how that probably saved her life during

00:37:33.740 World War II. What happened there? Yeah. So my grandmother was in hiding during the Holocaust in

00:37:38.520 Budapest, Hungary, and she left to get a bucket of water for the other people in hiding with her.

00:37:45.340 And she walked down the street and somebody from the Aero Cross Party, which was sort of the Nazi

00:37:51.260 equivalent ruling party in Hungary, rounded up her and some fellow Jews at gunpoint. And they marched

00:37:56.700 them to a building and they had them against a wall. And my Bubby, my grandmother, I called her Bubby, 0.90

00:38:03.640 knew that there was no getting out of this. Like she was doomed. The options were basically she was

00:38:09.620 going to get marched onto a train and taken to Auschwitz, like so many other people had, 0.73

00:38:15.000 or she was going to have a summary execution and get shot right there against the wall. And there 1.00

00:38:19.320 were literally dead bodies in the street when this was happening, as she told the story to me in

00:38:23.280 Hollandale, Florida at the age of 93, when we were recording her Holocaust survival stories.

00:38:28.080 And her only option, she told me, was to get nosy. And so she asked the soldier, this scared,

00:38:36.700 terrified, timid soldier, a question. And she asked, you know, what would happen if I were to step out

00:38:42.420 of line? And she wasn't necessarily looking for the answer. She was looking for his reaction. And he

00:38:48.700 answered with the Hungarian idiom, which I will translate to English, which equals, 1.00

00:38:52.540 is the mademoiselle so stupid or just pretending to be? And it was a little bit of a jokey answer. 0.99

00:38:59.340 She saw a lightness in his voice. He almost cracked a smile and she really saw his nervousness. And it

00:39:04.580 made her realize that she had a small window here to step out of line because he didn't yell at her.

00:39:10.740 He didn't, you know, hit her with the gun. He didn't cock the gun. And so just by being nosy,

00:39:15.520 having the wild courage to ask a question, it was the only way she was able to survive that scrape.

00:39:20.220 So she stepped out of line and started walking down the cobblestone street. And she said she

00:39:26.860 remembered hearing the click of her heels every time she took a step as she just kind of slowly

00:39:31.080 breathed in and breathed out and hoped that nothing would happen. And it didn't. And she returned back

00:39:35.520 to the attic safely. And so she really only survived because of her nosiness, because she had the

00:39:40.220 courage to ask a question. So this is all about asking questions, what it means to be nosy. I mean,

00:39:44.060 why do you think people have a hard time asking questions in their career?

00:39:47.420 Sure. We think it makes us look stupid or uneducated or unknowledgeable or think about 0.98

00:39:52.900 how many times, you know, for those of you who work in an organization that has a ton of acronyms, 0.98

00:39:58.600 right? You think, oh, well, it's too late. I'm already in this role for four months. I can't ask

00:40:02.460 that basic question. I can't ask that simple question again. But nosy is the courage to get

00:40:07.640 insatiably curious because curiosity drowns out fear and pulls you toward what is most exciting to you.

00:40:12.580 So use it as a compass. And curiosity shows leadership. It shows ambition. It's a great

00:40:16.940 way to overcome nerves at a networking event rather than feeling like you have to impress somebody.

00:40:21.940 Go ask them a bunch of what and how questions like, what was the most interesting session for

00:40:26.580 you so far? Or how long have you been in the industry and what brought you here? Or how have

00:40:30.880 your peers been responding to these sessions? Or how are you using AI right now? Like what and how

00:40:36.120 questions are so powerful and they take the pressure off of you in any kind of new relationship or

00:40:41.320 networking situation or a meeting with a mentor where you feel like you've got to be all buttoned

00:40:46.520 up and prove yourself, just start asking and start listening. And even the best leaders, you know,

00:40:52.040 going back to the person who's a few months into the role and they're like, oh, I'm too far in to ask

00:40:56.220 what that three-letter acronym stands for. But the leaders who we admire most are the ones who have

00:41:01.820 the confidence, the shamelessness, the boldness, the recklessness to say, hey, what does PRT stand for

00:41:08.980 on this slide? I just want to make sure that for everybody in the room who's new, we redefine that.

00:41:13.960 And everyone like sighs a sigh of relief that somebody finally, you know, had the boldness to

00:41:19.320 redefine that acronym of the thousands that are used at the company. And when it's a leader who does

00:41:24.060 that, I really admire it. You also talk about how you can use nosiness or asking questions to turn

00:41:30.060 envy into a springboard to success. What does that look like?

00:41:34.280 Well, you know, we've all got those people in our life who we're jealous of. It could be a friend,

00:41:38.820 it could be a colleague. And I say use envy as your engine and steal their blueprint. So,

00:41:45.560 you know, there was someone named Molly who I just deeply admired. She was a peer of mine. We were

00:41:49.260 always competing for promotions and I always thought she was like three times as good as I was. But 1.00

00:41:54.060 instead of being jealous and having it create a scarcity mindset for me, I thought of it as an

00:41:58.860 abundance mindset where I could learn from her. I could get deeply nosy and I could kind of like

00:42:03.700 discover her recipe for XYZ skills. So she was really good at project management. And

00:42:08.540 anytime we were launching a new program, she would have this awesome Gantt chart,

00:42:14.100 which had all of the dates and the accomplishments that needed to happen over a six month period of

00:42:18.260 time. She was really good at communicating next steps. She was really good at delegating. She would

00:42:22.060 bold the person's name in each email and put a deadline for what needed to happen next. She would

00:42:26.100 thank everybody and be very positive and empathetic. And so rather than just be jealous and say,

00:42:31.780 Oh, why am I not good at Molly? Like I resent her. I just went to her and I said, Molly, could I do

00:42:36.800 three 20 minute sessions with you where you review some of these project management skills with me

00:42:41.140 and I can basically steal your blueprint? And I would write down these things on an index card and I

00:42:47.140 would put them by my desk and I would use her strategies. Or I did this with another manager, 0.83

00:42:52.060 Ted, who was just such a phenomenal presenter and never said, um, in his presentations. And so then I

00:42:57.300 would gamify it for myself and I'd say, I'm going to count how many times Ted uses, um, in a 10 minute

00:43:02.520 presentation and I'm going to try to beat it. So again, rather than being jealous, I used envy as

00:43:07.160 my engine and I would steal their blueprint. And that is rooted in being nosy. It's being curious

00:43:11.820 versus jealous. This reminded me of Plutarch, the famous Roman biographer, philosopher guy. He talks

00:43:18.140 about two types of emotions. There's envy where you see someone who's better than you and you just feel

00:43:23.320 bad and you want to bring them down. And then he says the opposite of that is zeal. It's where you

00:43:28.000 admire someone's excellence and then you want to imitate it. I love that. So, so curiosity being

00:43:33.820 nosy can lead to zeal instead of envy. I love that. I really like that. I love that. Let's talk about

00:43:39.120 being manipulative. You had an instance where you use manipulation on a past AOM guest and that's

00:43:45.680 Vanessa Van Edwards. She talks about charisma. How did you manipulate Vanessa into helping you achieve

00:43:50.860 one of your goals? Yeah. Well, I really wanted to meet Vanessa. Like I'm, we, you know, we, we haven't

00:43:57.360 talked about obsessed, but like, I'm obsessed. I want to meet the best people. I want to do the best

00:44:00.800 work. I want to help people in the most high impact way. And I knew that part of that was building those

00:44:05.180 relationships with authors so that I could partner with them, you know, around time of book launch and

00:44:09.360 also just learn from each other and enjoy each other's friendship and, and, and, you know, mutual value

00:44:14.300 exchange. So I was headed to Austin for some work meetings. Someone had just introduced Vanessa

00:44:19.440 and me over email. And so I said, I'm going to be in Austin Thursday through Sunday. I would love to

00:44:24.820 take you out for coffee. And she said, Oh, what are the chances I'm actually going to be out of town

00:44:29.400 those exact dates for a keynote? And so I think a lot of people would just take no for an answer and

00:44:34.620 be like, womp, womp. Okay. Another time. And of course, another time never comes, but I wanted to

00:44:39.040 capitalize on this opportunity. So I said, what time does your flight depart on Thursday? And she said,

00:44:46.680 it departs at 3 PM. Well, my flight was scheduled to get in later than that, but a quick little

00:44:52.020 switcheroo flight change and $60 to Delta airlines had me coming in before her flight. So I can meet

00:44:58.040 her. And I said, what are the chances I get in at one o'clock? And so what if we met right by your

00:45:02.720 gate for coffee? So, you know, did I lie? Um, yeah, sure. Liar, liar, pants on fire, but I will stand

00:45:09.340 behind that lie all day long that I wasn't actually originally getting in at 1 PM. And maybe, 0.99

00:45:15.560 maybe I even said, I was getting in at one to just make sure it worked for her before I made 1.00

00:45:19.020 the flight change. So I think I actually did lie about the time my flight landed before I made the

00:45:22.880 change. But I tell you 60 bucks to meet Vanessa van Edwards in person, it's a bargain at twice the

00:45:28.740 price. And so we feel like everything has to be coincidental or just has to work out or fate. But

00:45:35.560 man, I just believe that serendipity isn't found. It's made and manipulative reclaimed is the courage

00:45:41.720 to build influence through empathy and to build lasting relationships. Because whether you're

00:45:45.580 selling a product, an idea, or yourself, the ability to win friends, allies, and supporters is

00:45:51.160 all about mutual benefit. So figure out what people want and go get it for them. In fact,

00:45:56.920 something happened this morning where I got an email from the person who ran the PR campaign for

00:46:03.380 the book. And she said, actually, I got an email a couple of weeks ago, but I totally forgot to

00:46:07.980 responded and said, Hey, would you be willing to write a testimonial for me on LinkedIn? So I would

00:46:11.740 call that nosy, right? That's great. And then I forgot to respond because I've had a lot going on.

00:46:16.200 And then she followed up. I'd call this bossy. She said, Hey, I hate to nudge you, but I'd really

00:46:20.720 appreciate this review on LinkedIn. Any chance you could do that? And so what I think would have made

00:46:26.540 it even more powerful is if she'd been manipulative and said, and by the way, I've drafted a couple

00:46:32.640 sentences for you that you can tweak as you see fit. Because when I talk about manipulative and how

00:46:37.660 it's all about finding mutual benefit and figuring out what people want and getting it for them,

00:46:42.300 what I want is time back. So I love doing favors for people, but they take time. And so had she

00:46:48.100 been manipulative and said, I've already written it for you, that gives me what I want, which is

00:46:52.200 time back and makes it a lot easier for me to say yes. So I did say yes, but now I have to do the work

00:46:56.640 and it's still something I have to add to my to-do list. So that's where manipulative can be such a good

00:47:01.140 thing and win-win and expand the pie, whether you're changing your flight to meet somebody because

00:47:05.460 relationships should be high reward, but also high investment or asking someone to do a quick

00:47:10.680 favor for you like my PR person did today. Yeah. So being manipulative, it's all about just being

00:47:15.040 influential. That's what it's all about. And your definition of just being influential is like,

00:47:19.700 you know, thinking win-win, finding out how you can get what you want and need and while at the same

00:47:25.040 time delivering what someone else needs and wants. It reminds me of this famous quote from Dwight

00:47:30.520 Eisenhower about leadership. And he said, leadership is the art of getting someone else to do

00:47:35.200 something you want done because he wants to do it. Oh my gosh. That's so beautiful.

00:47:39.880 Manipulative, but like that's just leadership. That's being influential.

00:47:43.740 Yeah. Yeah. So last one, you talked about obsessed. You're obsessed with meeting Vanessa

00:47:48.300 Van Edwards. That's another one of your traits of wild courage. What does positive obsession look like?

00:47:54.040 Well, it's pushing, persisting, performing, because frankly, none of these traits will serve you if you

00:47:59.060 don't learn to deliver, not for some company, but to achieve your own ambitions. So obsessed for me,

00:48:04.080 it was I wanted a job at Google in 2006. I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and I submitted my

00:48:09.180 application online, having no clue what the job was that I submitted it for. But I discovered there

00:48:14.340 was maybe sort of possibly a formatting funkiness when I uploaded my resume and whether there was

00:48:20.280 or wasn't, when I didn't hear back from Google, I used that as an opportunity to print out that

00:48:24.740 resume on a piece of paper and hop in my mom's 10 year old Honda stick shift and drive to the Google

00:48:30.540 office and sit there on the couch until someone came out and talked to me. And I remember the

00:48:35.460 receptionist, it was a shared office space was like, no, it's not really protocol for Googlers

00:48:39.280 to come out and talk to you. You can drop the resume here. And I just like firm as a tree rooted

00:48:44.100 to the ground, you know, with my smile kind of like cheeks quivering as I kept that smile on.

00:48:49.260 I was professionally persistent and said, oh, it's okay. I'll wait. I really do need to talk to

00:48:54.100 somebody because there was a problem with my resume. And there's this study that says people

00:48:57.860 defer to because it was a study about people standing in line to make Xerox copies. And

00:49:02.560 someone from the back went to the front and said, I need to go to the front line because I need to

00:49:06.200 make copies. Just because they said the word because they were more likely to be let into the

00:49:10.440 line, even though of course, everyone was there to make copies. But the research suggests that people

00:49:14.620 defer to the word because XYZ. So I said, because there was a problem with my resume, I need to speak

00:49:21.000 to someone. And eventually someone named Elizabeth came out and I talked a little bit about how I had just

00:49:25.860 come back from working abroad and backpacking through South America, which I understood were

00:49:30.640 very Google-y, you know, skills or things that people did to be kind of well-rounded and global

00:49:35.220 citizens. And then, then and only then did I hear back from Google once I showed up. Actually,

00:49:41.520 not even then. I, I didn't hear back. I didn't get her business card. And then I tried every single

00:49:47.020 permutation and combination of first initial last name, first name, last name, just last name at

00:49:52.200 google.com. Her name was Elizabeth Kelleher. So I emailed E. Kelleher, Elizabeth Kelleher,

00:49:57.680 Liz Kelleher, you know, Elizabeth at google.com. And, and then finally I found the right combination.

00:50:03.520 And when I followed up, I, then I heard back. So that is my flavor of obsessed and it's okay to be

00:50:09.420 obsessed. It's okay to stick your neck out. It's okay to show that you want something deeply because

00:50:14.080 people like enthusiasm, people like energy, people like positivity. And that's what I was trying to show

00:50:19.800 because it didn't work. Just submitting my, my application online. Silly protocols and rules

00:50:25.380 are there to deter the deterrable, but I just decided I was going to be undeterred and I got

00:50:29.600 the job and here we are almost 20 years later. Yeah. You got to play it hot. Don't play it cool.

00:50:34.460 Definitely. So we've talked about these different traits. Is there one you think that people would

00:50:38.620 get the most benefit from working on or like the one that people struggle with the most that if they

00:50:43.140 started working on a day, they'd see a lot of ROI? I think shameless, you know, I think there's

00:50:49.120 just a lot of change in the world right now. A lot of economic uncertainty, a lot of change with,

00:50:53.860 you know, the onset of AI, a lot of layoffs, a lot of reorgs. And that's hard. You know,

00:50:58.240 there's this moment where my husband and I were living with my grandmother on her pullout couch

00:51:03.520 in Manhattan while we were job hunting. And John shared some unfortunate news. He, we sat down to

00:51:09.200 dinner. He said, I've been part of a major company restructure and I got laid off today. Well,

00:51:13.580 I'm crushed as a newlywed, but I look across the table at grandma Lila, who was like a total

00:51:18.980 spitfire at four foot 10 and 90 pounds. She was not just shameless. She was unstoppable. 1.00

00:51:23.500 And she said, John, no, it's just an opening offer. Don't sign the paperwork. And John and I

00:51:29.880 look at each other trying to silently communicate what we're thinking. And then finally John sighs

00:51:33.560 and says, uh, I think a layoff is like a one-sided thing, grandma. They say, you don't work here

00:51:40.000 anymore. And I say, okay. And that's when grandma Lila sighs and says, well, sure, it would be more

00:51:45.920 comfortable to take no for an answer, but don't let fear shape your decision. Don't let shame shape

00:51:52.980 your decision. You both want something, right? They want to get stuff done, even though they can't

00:51:56.380 afford to pay you. And you want a job because it's easier to get a job when you have a job.

00:52:01.260 So, so finally John relents. And the next day he goes to his VP and he halfheartedly offers to stay

00:52:07.380 on for 10% time and pay while he job hunts. And shockingly they accept. Now I'm not sharing this

00:52:15.740 as some influence tactic per se. The point is grandma Lila's lesson. Don't let fear, don't let

00:52:22.600 shame shape your decisions. Get shameless. 0.81

00:52:26.860 Yeah. And it worked out for your husband because he, he got some time off. He had a little money to 0.52

00:52:31.560 live on, kept his benefits. And then a few months later after this crisis that this company was

00:52:37.260 going through, he kind of abated the company hired him back full time. And it was all because he's

00:52:42.480 willing to do something we think of as a bad thing. It'd be shameless. Like he had to be

00:52:47.020 uncomfortable and ask for something that apparently wasn't an option. Well, Jenny, this has been a great

00:52:53.000 conversation. Where can people go to learn more about you and your work?

00:52:55.980 Well, the book's available anywhere, electronic, you know, ebook, audio book, hardcover, Amazon,

00:53:01.340 anywhere books are sold. And then you can find me on itsjennywood.com. And I love helping

00:53:07.520 organizations with keynotes. I love helping execs through one-on-one coaching. I do some small group

00:53:11.800 coaching and I would love to be in touch and help you find your wild courage wherever you are and

00:53:16.840 whatever you are chasing. Fantastic. Well, Jenny Wood, thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:53:20.620 Thank you so much, Brett.

00:53:22.740 My guest today was Jenny Wood. She's the author of the book, Wild Courage. It's available on

00:53:26.060 amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about her work at our website,

00:53:29.560 it's jennywood.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash wild courage where you find links

00:53:34.940 to resources. We delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM

00:53:46.700 podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast

00:53:50.260 archives as well as thousands of articles that we've written over the years about pretty much

00:53:53.620 anything you think of. And if you haven't done this already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute

00:53:57.320 excuse me to know the podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already,

00:54:00.660 thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think

00:54:03.960 would have something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time,

00:54:07.260 I'm Brett McKay reminding you to not listen to anyone podcast with Put What You've Heard

00:54:10.860 into action.

The Art of Manliness - June 17, 2025

How to Turn Vices Into Career-Advancing Virtues

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