Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #35: A Year in Review + Gary V + Evan Goldberg

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

Heather urges you to look back on your year -- what were your hopes for 2019 one year ago today? Where did you land on your goals? Next, two exciting interviews with both Gary V and the Founder and SVP of NetSuite. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Keep the unicorns alive. Show up every day with Coca-Cola energy. Energy you want, taste you love. Each week when you join me here, we are going to chase down our goals. Overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. Journey with me. Hi, and welcome back to creating confidence. I'm so excited.

You're back with me this week. And excited this week to talk about the new year and looking out at 2020 and how you're approaching it, wanted to share with you how I am approaching it. It made me, first of all, one of the things that I do, when I look at a new year coming to new years, and I love that idea of, you know, new year resolutions, what your goals are. I think it's so important to write down your goals, share them with people to hold yourself accountable, get really specific when you write them down. You know, of course, be open-minded that they might not all come to fruition in the timeline you're giving yourself. However, it's really important to give yourself a timeline, to have a plan and

strategy, how to get there, to elicit help and support to deliver on your promises to yourself. So it's a really exciting time of year. One of the things I'd love for you to do that I do is I look back on the previous year. So look at the beginning of 2019. And what were your plans for your New Year's resolutions, your New Year's goals when you were one year ago today at the end of 2018? what were you forecasting, planning, and what were your goals for 2019? So of course, I sat down and did this. It is so crazy how much can change in a year. And if you don't believe that, let me tee this up for you. So at the end of 2018, I had written my book. I was out speaking everywhere I could to promote and sell the book, doing a lot of promotion. I started being a

podcast guest on a lot of different shows. I had actually started talking to podcast one about the potential of doing a show. Nothing was solidified. And at this time last year, conversations went dark. One of the challenges when you are not working in corporate America, but you're an entrepreneur, is the time around the holidays is tough. So many people are on vacation. So many people are off and things have a tendency to slow down, of course.

Which when I was in corporate America, I thought was great because I could have time off. However, when you are the sole revenue provider and revenue generator, you own the business and company, you want everyone to be working and as excited as you are each day. So this time of year can be difficult, but like with anything, the more experience you have with it, the more you can adjust to it. So this year is definitely better than it was last year. But sitting at the end of 2018, looking towards 2019, I can tell you this, I remember, I definitely wasn't certain I would have my own podcast by any stretch of the imagination.

because my conversations had gone dark. So I knew I wasn't going to do the podcast on my own. I would only do it if I could partner and sign on with a major marquee brand like Podcast One. So that was up in the air. It wasn't a clear goal that I was giving a timeline to because it wasn't working out that way at the time. So some of the things that I remember focusing intently on was I remember wanting Reese Witherspoon to make my book into a movie. I had been told hundreds of times by people, who had read the book that it should be a movie. I decided she was the one that I needed to make it into a movie and I needed to meet with her. So I put that out into the universe as one of my goals, newsflash that did not happen in 2019. We don't know if it's going to happen moving

forward. It's still on my radar. But I shared that with you because I had a lot of goals that I wanted to achieve and I achieved a lot of them. However, I set a lot of goals that nothing happened with a lot of them, right? So one was around the speaking business and I didn't know the importance or value in signing with a speaking bureau, an exclusive agreement. I just knew that I was signing with a lot of speaker bureaus. I had a lot of representation. So part of, I guess, the evolving or the evolving and changing during the year was I was learning more because so many of the things I'm doing are new. I don't have all the information. So I didn't know to set a goal that I wanted to sign and exclusive with a speaker agent. I learned during the year it would benefit me tremendously because

they'd actually go out and hustle and pitch me and promote me, which no one was doing. So that was something I learned along the way. I didn't know that one year ago. And I share that with you because today you might not know exactly what all of your goals and New Year's resolutions are going to be. You know, you might have a grasp on a few of them that you have clarity with, but it's okay not to know all of them. And it's okay to evolve these things during the year. I certainly did because some of the things I'm most proud of were not on my list of New Year's resolutions and goals a year ago. So at the end of 2018, I wasn't clear and I didn't set launching my own podcast in May of 2019 as a goal and having Gary Vaynerchuk as my first guest. I wasn't clear on any of those things. Or that was

so far out of my realm of possibility in December of 18. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Things that transpired between December 18 to May of 19 were so massive, I couldn't have predicted them. You know, and it was all about just taking action, thinking bigger, and swinging for the freaking fences. And sometimes you connect and things happen. And other times you don't. You know, I worked with Kim Gravel, who's amazing on launching a clothing brand with

HSN. That has not come to fruition. In fact, those conversations are dark right now. And I spent money and time and resources. on those things. Doesn't mean it won't ever happen, but it didn't happen. Another thing I was really focused on at the end of 2018 was I really wanted to take the stage for Grant Cardone's 10X event that was coming to Miami. I believe it was in January or February of 19. I had worked for him free. I volunteered my time for him a couple years ago to do a TV show for him. And when I left,

He said, if you ever need anything, you know, let me know. And he wasn't as near as big as he is now. And so his brand has blown up. Now he was doing a huge speaking event with, you know, thousands of people at the local stadium here in Miami. I really wanted to take that stage. Anyway, I got to his people. They know me.

They like me. And they told me no. They said, no, you know, we're already full and there's just no space and blah, blah, blah. So I was really disappointed in that. And that was something I was really clear on I wanted. Didn't happen. I wanted to write my second book, which I did do. So I'm super proud of that.

But like I said, the things that I'm most proud of accomplishing in 2019 were not on that list of goals that I wrote out at the end of December in 2018. So be open-minded to celebrate the wins that you did have. And really, for me, most of the goals that I wrote down and thought I was going to achieve or was so focused on achieving, those were the ones that didn't end up really coming to fruition. Didn't happen. However, now that I look back, I see how things evolved and change. And just to give you a couple of highlights, and I'm super proud of.

I remember I was really excited to be on Lori Harder's podcast. She's a big podcast. And I was going to be a guest coming out, you know, the first week of January. And I was so excited about that and putting that out to the universe. It was going to be huge. What I did know is January 3rd, I'd get a phone call back from the Steve Harvey. show. I had no idea. I had been knocking on the door, sending them life-size cut out, sending them autographed copies in my book. And wouldn't you know, the first week of January, I got a call,

hey, can you be here in two weeks? We'd love to have you as a guest. So that was huge. And I had no idea that was coming. Follow up a month later, I got a DM on LinkedIn from a professor at Harvard asking me if I would teach a class at Harvard. And so a month later, I taught a class on sales and marketing at Harvard. And I have to tell you, that was never on my list of things I was going to achieve. It's something that happened because I post so much content that this professor found valuable. He was intrigued for me to come in and share some of the direction, learning, and experience I have around sales and marketing with his students, because he said he did not have similar knowledge that I had. His was mostly based off of reading and research, where

mind was in the real world experience and he wanted to show that different perspective to his students. So that was such an amazing experience. I could have never predicted it. So again, I go back to, you don't have to have all the answers or all the right goals to write down today. You do need to identify what are some of the big goals that you can have and share them with people and give yourself a timeline and go for them because those massive actions and steps that you'll take towards them will open doors that you didn't even know existed. I was still going after Reese Witherspoon to get the book done. And that meant pitching myself for more speaking engagements, which ended up teaching me I needed to sign an exclusive with a speaker bureau,

which led me to APB speakers that I signed with. I let my friends know about it. So during this process, you know, so many different things happened. A friend of mine sent my speaker kit over to hypergrowth in Boston. And it ended up, I had to, interviewed Jesse Itzler from my podcast. And so when they wanted someone to interview him and Sarah Blakely, I was a natural to fit for that spot. None of those things would have happened without the other things, Domino's falling beforehand. So if I hadn't launched a podcast with Podcasts 1 back in May, if I hadn't landed Gary Vaynerchuk

as my first guest. And if he hadn't supported me on social the way that he did, I wouldn't have set the bar so high that it became reasonable to ask for Ryan Sourhan as a guest, Amy Moran as a guest, James Altiger for a guest, Jesse Itzler as a guest, and so on and so forth. So when you set that bar high, you swing for the fences, you're going to miss a lot. I've been, you know, David Goggins people told me no. Chelsea Handler's people told me no. Wait until you see who said yes in January.

You're going to be so excited for one of these guests that I have coming on in the middle of January. I'm super excited. of my biggest guess yet. But so you have to keep swinging and keep putting it out there because we're going to get a lot of knows. But there's one thing that I've built my success off of in corporate America as well as an entrepreneur. And that's going for the ask every time. It's not a sum of the time thing. It's an every time thing. And not taking it personal when we get a no. I know it's a redirection. And sometimes you can get a know from someone, re-approach it, change the conversation,

and ultimately get the yes. So just keep adding value, keep moving forward, keep swinging for the fences, and you might be shocked as to what goals you actually achieve and how different they are from what you set out to. So the biggest, the two things I had a lot of clarity around was I was going to take that 10x stage. Remember, I didn't get it. I had many conversations, a lot of dialogue, and I was told no in the end, and that was a hard no.

And the other was that my movie was going to be made with Reese Weather Spoof. and I still have not had a discussion with that woman. Although I've had discussions with people who are connected to her, that is not happening as of today. But some of the amazing things that did happen was I did launch my show with Podcast 1 in May of 2019. I'm so proud. We're at 800,000 downloads right now, which is mind-blowing.

Again, I wanted to get to a million when I saw the trajectory picking up. We're not there yet, but we will be there soon. And I'm super, super grateful for everyone tuning in. for sharing the podcast, supporting the podcast, commenting, liking, and leaving a review. It helps so much. So thank you so much for that. And of course, one other really big accomplishment, personal accomplishment I had this year was my TEDx talk. I'm so proud of it. If you haven't seen it yet, it's 10 minutes long. I lay out the five-step plan, how I created confidence in my life and fired the villain that I had. And I promise you, you will gain value from

this 10 minutes. Definitely check it out on YouTube. Just type in Heather Monahan TEDx and it will show right up and I can't wait to hear what you think, but I'm super, super proud of that. So again, the things that I set out to accomplish New Year's heading into 19 are not the things that I accomplished, but they did evolve and open doors into other things that are really taking off for me now. Another thing that I learned that I wanted to share quickly with you is that, you know, for my TEDx, I followed my heart and told a very personal story, knowing that some people might not like it. I'd get some haters. Yes, the haters came for sure. But one of the things that was disappointing was hearing from the head of a major speaker bureau that I should have played it safe. I should have talked about sales and sales

leadership. And that would have gotten me more bookings at a higher rate to drive revenue for me and my business. And, you know, I had to take a moment and think about it. I was really disappointed at first when I heard that. And I thought about it and I decided in just a short time in the few weeks it's been out, the feedback I've gotten from people has been overwhelming. And I'm glad I went with my heart. I'm glad I went with my gut. And I'm glad I did what was right. Because at the end of the day, we're not going to make everyone happy, but who knows what the future holds. This just might set me down a different path that opens different doors. And I'm going to stay focused on that. So today, the show is going to be a little different seeing as how we are knocking on

the new year. I thought it would be great to do a mashup. And one of the shows I'm super excited about actually is a show I went on. Last month, I was a guest on Gary Vaynerchuk's show. He has been such an amazing supporter of mine this year. I'm so, so grateful for him. Remember, a year ago, I didn't even know the guy. I just followed him on social media. And now he was a guest. He was my first guest ever, the most downloaded episode on Creating Confidence. If you haven't heard it yet, please go back and listen to it. It's the first episode. It's so, so good. But, you know, not only did he do that. During that interview, I asked him, I'd love to be a guest on your show and share some value around getting fired and the bounce back for your audience. And he said, yeah,

let's do it. And so after a lot of calls, DMs, emails, and text messages, his executive assistant got me on. And that aired last month. And I'm super proud of it. So what I did was I'm sharing some highlights from that interview, some of the takeaways that Gary shared with me to really help me and support me. And I hope that it helps and supports you because this man definitely is a mastermind when it comes to social media business, being an entrepreneur, driving revenues, and driving communities. So he's got so much to share. I hope you take a lot of way. Before we get there, I've got to share some podcasts, one love, and let you know that if you love true crime podcast, you have got to check out copycat killers, the late.

podcast from Reels and Podcast 1. These are the same guys who did murder made me famous. So if you love that, you are going to love copycat killers. Every episode, they go behind the scenes of real life murder cases. Oh my gosh. Which copy memorable slang seen in Hollywood movies. You definitely need to check it out. Be sure to subscribe on Podcast 1, Apple Podcasts, and many other podcast apps so you can get new episodes every Tuesday just like creating confidence. Hang tight. We'll be back. Make 2020 a year where you explore new skills, deepen existing passions, and get lost in creativity. If that sounds hard, then you need Skillshare's online classes now. They make it very, very easy. What you find just might surprise you and inspire you. And this is the time you actually

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liking and so we're going to continue to do it. I'm super excited about this interview because this is a great story about if you don't ask, you don't get. So I'm going to let this lovely lady introduce herself and tell you who she is, then I'll tell you how she got here. And then we're going to shoot the shit. What's up? I'm so excited to be back here. It's crazy. So I'm Heather Monaghan. I was formerly a chief revenue officer in corporate America for 14 years. I got fired two years ago. And when that happened, I wrote and self-published my first book, Confidence Creator, which trump trump for number one in business biographies on Amazon, have the screenshot to prove that one.

And I've just been out now speaking. I just did my first TED Talk Saturday. Thank you. And I'm just tearing it up. So I was on your podcast. A couple months ago. You're welcome for that. A couple months ago, Heather. And then at the end or in it or towards the end, you're like, can I be on yours? And I said, yep, you can.

And one, we had a great, I thought it was a great session on your podcast. Everyone loved it. Yeah, actually, let's jump into that. How was the feedback? Amazing. What was the thing that stood out? People said it was a different version of you because we talked a lot about family. Remember we talked about your grandmother?

We really got into some different topics. I think that typically people don't explore with you, which is cool. Cool. And so great energy, to your point, I did think it got into a lot of territories that were different. And yeah, I just, you know, it's funny. I, and for everybody listening, you've seen Zane who's sitting here, asks me at a Q&A, can I get a job? I say yes, he literally works here.

You've seen other things. You know, I say yes too. And then I say no all the time. Like thousands and thousands, not thousands, hundreds and hundreds of people have asked me in those kind of scenarios, can I be on the podcast or this or that, you can't get a shout on your social and things that nature.

And I always feel super comfortable saying no or yes. But to the point, and something that I'd like to start talking about as a kickoff point before we go into a little more context on you and then anything else you want to talk about is how much, how often do you ask for what you're looking for? How has that worked for you in your career? When did you develop it?

Has it always been there? I think, you know, I put out a piece of content recently where I told everybody to DM, to text, everybody in their address book, if they knew anybody that could give them business, right? So if you're selling it, you know, everybody listening, if you missed it, if you sell t-shirts, if you have an agency,

if you have a product, a book, instead of texting everybody in your phone, and I'm talking like starting with Aaron Andelson and ending with Zach Zarlinton, you know, if you text everybody, instead of saying, hey, can you buy my book? You could say, hey, I have a new book, Aaron. Do you know anybody who'd be interested in it?

Which, of course, alludes to maybe them or maybe they actually do recommend somebody on it. That really struck a chord and I've gotten hundreds of emails in the last three weeks of people that did it and had miraculous results. Like literally my landscaping business was about to go under.

I was going to like put everything on a credit card but I saw that clip texted 483 people and have 13 new clients and don't need to take out credit cards. So so much of why we're sitting here is you just had the audacity, the strategy, the balls, the thoughtfulness,

whatever one wants to put in front of it to actually act. which is something people are super fearful of. How are you with that? Obviously, you did it with me. Has it always been there? Has it not been there? Tell me about you with the relationship of asking.

That's my opening question. This is funny. So you know Zach that runs your speaker business. Zach Nadler, yes I do. Okay. When you want more, start your business with Northwest registered agent and get access to thousands of free guides,

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So I was on a conference call with Zach, and I don't know Zach. And I was going to be interviewing Jesse Ezzler and Sarah Blakely a month ago in Boston. And so they had this call with me to like basically strategize how it would go and whatnot. So I said, listen, Zach, I don't know you, but here's a thing. I want to come out to biggie small, more money, more problem. Me and Jesse will go like riff this thing up and start rapping. He's like, excuse me. No, this is, we do it traditional and brer, blah, but if you don't like think out of the box and then just bring it like whatever crazy heat you have,

You're going to get nothing. I want it to be memorable. Like I want people to say, holy cow, like, so did I get what I want? No, he didn't let me do it, which is fine. But he will remember me forever because as soon as he saw me at hypergrowth, he's like, oh my God,

you're that crazy lady that wanted to come out with Jesse rapping. Yes. You know, so like even if you don't get what you're going for, you're going to be remembered forever. Are you better at asking for things in business or in personal life or both? Yeah, me too.

I'm not good in personal life. Me neither. I'm not good. have so much less fear of no in business than I did growing up with like girls. Like so much more. I used to like laugh like thinking like why am I 13 and willing to like do actual business with 43 year olds but I'm like scared to ask like Stacey Johnson to the dance. So I'm the same same thing.

And by the way, what's ironic about that is I actually have seen far more people the other way. I always used to think it was one and the same and like it was really funny to me to see like guys or gals that were good social life-wise asking crippled by cold calling or cold emailing or asking, which is why I asked you that. I've come to realize, wow, for some reason there's some sort of difference in those two worlds

and I'm curious about who stinks at both, who's great at both, and then who's good at one or the other, and which one? I wish I was good in my personal life now. What was the most businessy thing you did when you grew up? Being a kid? Yeah. Were you in business at all?

I mean, I had a paper. I grew up poor. My mom was a single mother. Where'd you grow up? Worcester Mass. Oh yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Yes, yes. Yes, I remember. Yeah, so no, I had a paper route since I was nine. I worked at fast food restaurants. I was, you know, a bus boy at like diners. You know, I just always worked. And so what about entrepreneurship versus job, right? Obviously you were CRO.

Now you've got fired. You're doing your own thing. Yeah, it's crazy. Was because, you know, a lot of people that grow up with adversity, single mom, having to work, love the stability of a real serious job? Yes. You went that route. I love that.

I never thought about being an entrepreneur. That was a crazy idea. Can you tell the kids that are listening that, you know, neither one of us are under 25. So, you know, right. So, like, how much we didn't grow up with entrepreneurship even being an option? No, you're the poster boy for the entrepreneurial world, but that didn't exist when we were kids. Everyone was in corporate America.

I didn't even know there was such a thing. That wasn't something somebody talked about. Yeah, like the only way you heard it is like, oh, they own their own business. You would not even use the word entrepreneur. No. And as a matter of fact, the word entrepreneur, the few times I did hear it,

usually meant rich kid who does nothing and parents are pinker. Really? It's really interesting. Like, that's how I recall it. Like four or five guys that I can think of growing up as 16, 22, 21. Like, they would have like a card

that was like, I'm an entrepreneur and I was like, what does that mean? And basically then somebody else, when they would leave, be like, oh, they just live on the beach. Their parents are like, yeah. Do you remember that PhD Papa has dealership? Yes. Yeah, that was, I mean, that was the entrepreneur back in the day. What are you most thinking about these days?

Like, what is your business today? Well, right now, my number one revenue stream is a speaking business, which is insane. I can't believe how much of money I get paid. I agree. It's crazy. It's so exciting. I wish I had known about this. How many times did you speak for free if ever?

I just woke for free at the freaking time talk. No, no, that I don't. I'm talking about prior to getting paid, or was your first- My whole career. For 20 years in corporate America, I was a sales leader. Every day I spoke. You're speaking to your team. But how about after you got fired?

Actually, tell that quick story before we run out of time. Which one? The framework of what I recall from our podcast and really where you go, you had this big gig, you got fired, you had to make an adjustment. Yeah, no, that was the scariest thing because I wasn't, I wasn't comfortable with that unknown space, like how you are. You've, you know, you've always been in this lane. Yeah, that's my world.

For me, that was never my world. like that safe. I was tricking myself. I thought it was really safe being in corporate America, which is bullshit, because any company can be sold tomorrow. And you only have your brand in you and your experiences and your network. So you are not safe unless you are actually doing it. I feel so much safer now that I've worked for myself. Because you're in control. I'm in control. I trust my boss. You know, like I, I'm not going to sell a company. I'm good. You know, and just it's such as, it's a seismic shift to think about how I. What's the first thing you thought? So you get, how did you fired in person? Yeah, and a two-minute meeting. Two-minute. With HR? So that, no, with the new CEO,

the CEO I had worked for for 14 years, became ill. He elevated his daughter to replace him. And she immediately said, come over. I need to have a meeting with you. And she basically passed two memos in front of me and said, I don't need a chief revenue officer anymore. I don't need you. Which memo would you like to sign? And one said, Heather Monaghan's been fired. And the other one said, you know, Heather Monaghan, wonderful employee, blah, blah, blah. But I knew this. This wasn't my first rodeo. I knew that there was... Did you have any relationship with her?

Well, prior? She was the CFO and I was a CRO. So we were like, she wanted to cut everything and I wanted to spend everything. I got it. Of course. That makes sense. But I never...

Did you know when she called you over? It was Kaputskis or did you hope... No, because she's a smart woman. She was very analytical and she's a CFO. She was the antithesis of me, but I got it. She knew, like, I was going to do their job. I'm not going to fire her. Right.

I figured she was going to rough me up a little, you know, to... Or trying to get aligned. Yeah. Well, I didn't think that was. So were you shocked? I mean, I cried the whole three hour ride home. Did you, did you, do you have it in you in that scenario? Like, what's funny about me is every time anything happens, I start the process of worst-case

scenario. Dustin emails me and says, I need three minutes with you. The first, this is real. It just, it just happened. The first thing I think is, I hope he's not sick. Like, I go so funny. I go into, like, what's the worst that can happen? I hope he's not sick.

I hope something weird didn't happen. Like, John did something weird to him and it needs to go to HR. To me, it's in this order. That person or their family is sick. Next, something like super politically incorrect, legal, sexual harassment, that's the next worst thing.

Third is a good employee wants to leave. So if a good employee says I need to see you, that's the third thing I think. But that's all I think. I don't think like, oh, it's going to be a five-minute check-in This is, by the way, everyone who's listening, this is the shit of owning your shit.

Like, this is actually the way you think. This is why it's interesting what you, like it's crazy to me, but it makes so much sense, which is why I'm jumping on this point. I never really thought about this. The only thing I would have thought when she wanted to see me is I'm getting fired.

But what I just realized based on your reaction, literally just hit me is like, right, when you're completely accountable to yourself, which is what you're figuring out now, all the greatness of loving your boss and feeling safe, The shit part is the way my brain actually works. Listen to what I'm telling you.

Every time anyone reaches out to me, in order, I think about terminal illness for them or their loved one, sexual harassment or stealing or something horrible, third is they're leaving and we value them. That is literally the order that my head goes. Then it's like, hey Gary, can we get 500 bucks for a TGIF Friday's party

next Thursday for the team? I'm like, yes. That's why I'm always in a good mood when it's anything but three. And the third one's not even that scary because genuinely on the record for anybody from Vayner that hears this, if one feels like they're ready to move on,

I want to help them. It's the first two that scared the fuck out of me and always what I think. Every time a client reaches out, we're getting fired. Never, we're getting more growth of business. Macro, I'm optimistic. Macro, I'm like, we're going to win.

We're the best. Micro, I'm not. That means something big. I don't know what it is. I'm not a psychologist, but it's got to mean something. Let me tell you, what it means in your world. When you're walking in there,

micro, she's about to fucking fire me. Macro, I'm fucking a capable human being, I'm going to fucking figure it out. Whether I'm going to get another fucking job that's going to pay me more, or I'm going to start my own career and fucking speak at TEDx. Got it? Yeah, I was, but I was the opposite of that. I understand.

That's crazy. Which is what I'm thinking of, why I'm saying this so aggressively, is because there's two people listening right now in this show, in the framework of business. Entrepreneurs and employees. And it's like an interesting debate for people that are, like, for example, there's a lot of people

that are employees right now that are thinking about making the jump where they listen to what I just said and are saying, do I want to live a life where I have to always be that on and anxious at all times? Because yes, I'm a firefighter.

Like, what's amazing about your life right now is you're in control. What's terrible is you're in control. Right. Like, if you decide to chill this morning, like, if Dustin isn't, I'm just looking at him, if Dustin's just like not feeling,

feeling it today, and I'm like pumped all the time and have days when you wake up and you're just not fully feeling it, one could argue that you can call out sick. You can lally gag your day. You can. For me, that's at, like, I'm like, oh, the reason I haven't had a sick day in nine years

is that's more scary than the lally gag. Obviously, if I run 105 fever, I'm willing to stay home. But all those days, I mean, I called out of school 13 to 23 times a year. I made pretend I was sick 13 times a year. Once I figured out in high school that the nurse had to send you home if you weren't willing to go back to class

legally, it was over. I just lay there until they sent me home. I'm like, I'm nauseous, I'm unconscious, I feel weird, I'm anxious, like get me out of here. And then the best part was I'd go outside my mom would have to pick me up freshman and sophomore year and junior year

before I got my car. And literally I would never look at her because the second I would look at her eyes, I would just start laughing because we both knew the gig. The gig was up. Anyway, not to tell you, what happens? You cry all the way home and then what?

I went under a weighted blanket, grabbed a bottle of Chardonnay, and then I did something... How was the Chardonnay? Oh, it wasn't empathy. It needed to be empathy. Now it's empathy. No, but how was it? Oh, it was good. Good, okay. All right, so here's a thing, though. I did something super smart, and I had never done it. I posted on social media that I just got fired. I just was vulnerable, and I just said, I need your help. You needed something. I needed help. I didn't know what to do. And it was crazy. Froggy from the Elvis Duran show tweeted at me. I want to help you. Is there any way I can help you? And I wrote, and I tweet it back. Yeah, book me, book me on Elvis. He booked me right away to go on the Elvis show. I went on the show and halfway through the interview, Elvis says, well, obviously you're writing a book. And I said, well, obviously, but I wasn't.

So I googled on the plane on the way home, how do you write a book? And it says just write. So I was like, I can do that. So I just went home and I just started writing and writing. And then, you know, it took like two months and I was done with my book. Did you debate self-publishing? Because I heard you earlier say that versus getting a book deal. Was the book deal too long and drawn down and you wanted to get it out?

Speed to market. So, you know, obviously with my. history and business, I knew speed to market is critical. And I've got to move fast and I'm going to move so much faster than some traditional publishing house. So I'm glad that I felt published. Did you consider getting a job? Like going back? To a job, yes.

So I had to sign a non-compete when I took the chief revenue officer position. So for one year, I couldn't go back to media. So I thought to myself, if I'm going to start over as a rookie somewhere, why wouldn't I roll the dice on me versus, you know, if I'm going to go do something new? So what happened next? You write the book? So I write the book and then I Google how do you promote a book and you speak to promote a book. So I was like, oh, that's easy. I already know how to speak.

I didn't know there was a speaking business. I had no idea. Me neither before I got into it. It's so crazy to me. I always think how many other things do we not know about that we could be great? An uncomfortable amount. So that's what's so exciting. I mean, that's my entire thesis.

When there was some gal in line in this speech I gave and she's like, Gary, I know your thesis of taste things in your 20s and figure out what you love or what you're great at or what there's what's your point and she's like but I've done all that like what do I do? And I looked at her she was from Belarus too. So I was like kind of like from the homeland and I'm like let me get this straight you've decided that you've done everything on earth and you now know everything like it was just it was funny to watch her like realize

oh I've only done nine things and there's nine billion things there's so many things. Well it's like I was just mentioning to you Marcia Kilgore how she's disrupted the beauty business. Look at that. This is someone who is been in the beauty business for a couple of decades and one day just said, hey, I'm going to flip this whole model upside down. Now it just challenges me to think, how can I flip everything upside down? Everything's in play because of the internet. Bookstores and limos are just the first ones. Everything. Every single thing is vulnerable. Everything. Everything. What do you want to,

everybody who's listening, like you like eyelash extensions, vulnerable. You like ice cream, vulnerable. You like kindergarten, vulnerable. Literally, this is why like people, you know, sometimes struggle to understand what I'm saying, all of it. The answer is yes. There's nothing that is protected. Amazon's vulnerable. I'm telling you right now, let me explain what I mean by that. If you ask me, give me a top 10 great idea to start a business right now,

one of them is to start a local bookstore. That's shocking. That's why I'm making a point of it. I believe that we are at enough scale of books being delivered by Amazon. that the counter move is now up for debate. That if you build a trendy, coffee, we-worky, co-working, kind of vibey, drive bar, Sephora, rad fucking bookstore,

that people will go. That if you make it experiential and have another variable, that people will pay the extra dollars that are more than Amazon to be there. I don't know. So I had the TED Talk. I ordered like seven dresses online

because when you're a woman, you have to really think about what you're going to wear for something like this. No, it's not as big a deal for a man. You're not going to be scrutinized the way that I would be. I think it's time that we start having counter debates of where some men are like wildly focused on what they're wearing.

They're not going to be scrutinized though. Oh, scrutinized. Yeah, I mean, everyone's going to talk about what I wore. Like, it's too sexy or it's not, she's not feminine or whatever. But why does that matter? I don't know. It matters in a woman's head. These are the things women think about.

Men think about how much money they make, how tall they are. Men think about a lot of things too. I'm not making a men-women thing. I'm making it a, how do you eliminate that because then you go fast? Move out of Miami,

that's what I should do to eliminate that. Or just not value people's opinions, pro or con. You're right. You are right. I want that for you. Because I want that for everybody. I want it for everybody.

I want it for every. I went to the Knicks game last night and had 400,000. It was, my friend said to me, holy fuck, you're more popular than every Nick. And when I tell you that I can't even feel it, I can't, which is why I can handle the next morning when somebody wrote a blog post this day

that I'm trying to exploit the sports card industry because Tops pay me $25,000 to cure at a set. Like, you need to be able to, I really want this for you. And I have a lot of empathy when you talk about women's appearance. Like the enormity of DMs that I get from women that say, look, easy for you. Like I spend 40 years before I go on,

film and I'm like, look, there's so many, like, I understand that. Historical truths, you know, men and women are different. There's a million things that go into that, but there are so many men that are shy to go on camera because of their looks and there are so many women that are not, and vice versa. Sure. And I'm just trying to get everybody into a mindset of happiness, which is actually truth of elimination of judgment. But nonetheless, you might also enjoy it.

Like, it just might be fun for you to, some. consciously to go through seven dresses. No. Maybe not. Absolutely not. Maybe not. No, that's pure hell. Understood. But the whole point, this is not why I was telling this. Yeah, where are you telling me? Okay, so the whole point is this. So I had to order all these dresses because I wanted to get the right outfit and drive myself crazy. But then

I got these dresses from Sacks and I look at, I usually order from Revolve, which is a customer center of business, right? So it's easy to do business. So it's also great pricing, great products. Great pricing, great products. This is hashtag not an ad. Well, all of a sudden I look at Sacks, you have to pay if you want to return it via UPS or whatever. So I'm like, I'm not going to do that. I'll bring it into the store because that's just principle. It's wrong. So I bring it into the store.

I hadn't been in the store in a long time. The guy literally is like, listen, here's my card. The guy that works at the desk, there's no one in the store. And he said, here's my card. Next time you order online, if you can just include this code, now I'll get a commission. And I thought to myself, this model is so freaking broken that this poor sales guy is like begging for someone to, you know, use their code so that they can

make a dollar off of something that they used have people come in the store and, you know, that model is just broken. Yeah, I mean, that suck. That whole experience that you just, like, I would never go to Sacks again if somebody asked me that. Horrible experience. And now I'm not mad at Sacks, I'm just mad at the whole thing. I feel bad for the guy. Well, obviously it's not, I mean, they're not training their people. I mean, there's so many issues

there. The customer's not, the focus, it's all broken. Yeah. Before we head out, because we don't have that much time, what is, what's on your mind? What do you want to share with the audience? What are you talking about these days? Oh my gosh. Stepping into fear because I was paralyzed by fear for so long. I knew that lady didn't like me when I was working there,

but I would just ignore it all the time. And that chipped away at me, my confidence. It chipped away at like my potential. And when you erode yourself in a situation, at some point you have to look in the mirror and say, like, enough is enough. I've got to like just go out there and take a chance on me. And I wasn't able to do that.

I got pushed out. But I'm so glad now that I did. And this TED talk that I did, it's so ridiculous. standing on a little red circle and having a ticker going off for 10 minutes. It was one of the most stressful things I've done. But once you're done with it, it's like I said to myself right when I was walking out there, maybe I'm going to bomb right now.

I don't know because this is not like anything I've ever done. But I'm going to love me so much more like when I get off the stage because I walked out there. Sure. And so what since the fear professionally have you stepped into? Oh my gosh. Everything. I left my fiance that I've been in a relationship. relationship with for eight years.

That was like massive. Yeah, it's like a domino effect for sure of, you know, different things that have occurred. And I keep like pushing myself to try different things and like go to that. Talk to me about your, so speaking is a core thing for you. Yeah, that's my number one thing. So let's talk about personal brand building, which would lead to more speaking gigs. Yeah. What are you doing content wise?

How are you thinking about that? I'm not doing a good job of that. I need a DROC in my life. I mean, that's definitely the next investment that I have made. The DROC part is not the punchline. It's the strategy. that makes you comfortable with it. You can have a DRock.

You can have a great strategy, but if you don't have the team to execute it. You could have a team. Well, where do you want to make your investment? I mean, that's what you have to. That I respect. So you're saying it's a financial. 100% because that's the difference.

Let me ask you a question. Do you believe if you tweeted, much like you tweeted, I got fired, that I'm looking for an intern for a very low cost, but you'll get the skill set to do the DRock thing

and can you afford it whether you're A, super hungry and you think it's strategically right because you get close to me or B, you just come from highly wealthy parents who are going to subsidize your life during this time and you want the experience. Do you feel like you could get that person?

You're right. That's a good point. Okay, so that's that. Let's put that on a shelf. What else are you doing on content? Where are you on LinkedIn? Oh, I kill on LinkedIn. Tell me.

How often you post? What do you post? How are you thinking about it? You know what? I don't strategize. And tell me the truth, because I really want to help. you and he's like final minutes.

Thank you. How often do you post on LinkedIn? Once a day. Once a day. Written? Well, I do videos but then my viral post, like I've had millions of views on my post, it's always nine professional pictures of like that's the recipe for whatever reason and sharing something vulnerable.

Those ones go viral for me. Have you tried to use LinkedIn like Twitter? I've been thinking about this a lot. No. I've been thinking about the notion of LinkedIn's algorithm is highly organic. right now and one or two sentences of thoughtful business chatter, three or four sentences, on the fly. Like you're going down the elevator now after this podcast and we talked about something that

you thought about and be like, literally here's literally the LinkedIn post. Just at a podcast made me really think about, you know, the things I continue to say no to that are actually yeses. I just need to look at them from a different angle. This is what I always challenged myself for because I think what I'm good at in giving advice for. that is a LinkedIn post would take you 39 seconds

I think you should be posting based on what you're trying to achieve in your career eight to 15 times a day on LinkedIn get out of here and that's not going to be overkill you don't think it's not spamming people no because people aren't going to see it all right what people understand is the algorithm

the thing that people haven't figured out is the algorithm is on the side of the person that's consuming it not on the side of the person that's making it interesting and so the algorithm is going to you know who it's going to overkill? The 49 people on Earth that think you're the greatest thing of all time and they're going to see all 15.

They're going to be pumped. Right. I'd like to get 49 piece of content from Randy and the Macho Man Savage in 1988 every day of my life. You know, so no, that's why the algorithms work. People blame the algorithms like, fuck you, algorithm. I'm like, mm-mm, the algorithm's there for the people. It's consumer-centric.

The reason algorithms work is because it's consumer-centric. If you think I'm rad, you're going to see me because you're going to slow down when you're consuming it. you're going to consume, you're going to like, you're going to comment, and that's an indicator that you're going to see it. Do you respond to haters when they post on your, you do? Not always, I mean, right now, the sheer volume between text messages, social, email that I'm getting is unsustainable,

even if I did it for 18 hours a day. But I'm very, I had 30-minute coffee this morning with a gentleman who, I wouldn't call my hater, but was aggressively pushing back against me on social. And we had a lovely conversation about like marketing and how we see it differently. I get a lot of value. I mean, look, there's people that are making up stuff.

The kid that wrote the article today about me in the sports card world made up stuff because I posted a photo of a box of card yesterday which I did for my friend that runs stock X. Josh, as a friendly gesture, he's turned it into this highly like hidden compensate. I mean, people are delusional. So that I don't get a lot of value out of.

lying or mean hate. If somebody, you know, haters that pick on women and use sexual, you're not gonna, there's no engagement there. People that are like, Gary, you're a charlatan. Like, like, you're full of shit. Like, what have you ever done?

I'm comfortable jumping in, be like, hey, I understand you may not like the Instagram videos or I might come across too aggressive, but like, on that point of what have I ever done, I do think there should be a discussion of like, I've built two massive businesses. Like, and to that point, that might be a framework to a conversation.

If they reply to you is like, fuck you, bitch, then I'm like, okay, this needs to move on. If they're like, okay, that makes sense. I didn't realize that. Then I'll come back and be like, hey, what about you? Like, what do you do? Like, I'm very capable of dealing with negativity

because I come at it from compassion and empathy. They don't know me. Right. Everybody in this room doesn't know me, and I know these three hang out with me a lot and have a lot of access to me. They don't fully know me.

Who knows you? So when people are casting judgment, this is why I don't take compliments high either. That's hard. That is really, but you have to train yourself to do that. Well, this is why, you know, I look at,

I look at like, there's a couple things that people really struggle with. If you're attractive as a guy or gal, inevitably you're in trouble because you grew up in a life where people told you were attractive and you took that in. If you had high success in school,

if you had high success in sport. You know, by not being an attractive scholar or athlete, I had none of those over things. And so what actually gave, me reinforcement was the end market. Nobody complimented me except the results of my little businesses. So I became market driven,

not people's opinions driven. My friends, got it? That's what I've self-analyzed. So that's what I'm looking for everybody else to do. Forget about individual opinions. What's the score say? Do people, like, I always tell people, do the people that know you best like you?

See, my thing is there's so many people out there that are admired, but if you look carefully, their inner circles, garbage. That's sad. Well, that's a lot of people that people think are awesome. Like a lot of people that get exposed later in the news, like bad shit, me too, fraud, go to jail.

If you look carefully, you can be like, why don't they happen in her circle? Why aren't there people there for a long time? That's creepy. Like, I'm like, why do I have people around me forever? Like, it's not super complicated. Like, people get confused. And then they're reversed. So to me, I'd rather the people that know me the best,

admire me the most, and the people that don't know me at all and are insecure and upset with themselves, hate me the most. Absolutely. That's the game. Done. Fear is a real... You need to challenge yourself,

in my opinion, to play that exact... You are not naturally that person. Just like I'm not naturally work out well, like, it's really fun to think I don't do radical candor well because I hate micro-negativity

which has led to all my vulnerabilities. That's what I'm working on. You need to fucking go all in on everything that is judgment. I love that. That's the game for you. you. All right. I'm in. Final point. You get the floor for the last 30, 60 seconds. Starting the year with a wardrobe refresh, Quince has you covered with lux essentials that feel effortless

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash confidence to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash confidence. Fear is a liar and confidence is the one thing that can change everything for anyone and it's a choice. It's not something you're. It's a practice. It is a practice. Right. It's a discipline and it's a decision every day when you wake up, but it's the game changer. I'm going to add and I apologize. I said you get the last word, but I'm fucking maniac. I'm completely flawed. It just made me think of something. Judge the Judger. A couple of new big executives have come to Vayner and they're like, wow, this place is fucking amazing. And I'm like, why? And both said the same thing. They said after six months, they're like, you don't just blindly take. content and context from people, you actually 360 it.

And I'm like, what do you mean? They're like, well, a couple weeks ago, I told you Sally Magoo sucked and you came back a week later and said, you have a wrong perspective because you only took it from one person's point of view. And you were right after I did the homework.

Judge the judgeer, my friends, if somebody says you're ugly, you have to decide who that person is, including your mom, including your dad. Most importantly, those people, because those people are coming from there, their own challenging places. Judge the judger.

They're still right. People get feedback and they're like, I'm stupid. I'm like, because Ricky Magoo said you're stupid? Judge the judger. That's the easiest way to get into a fear-based. Here's my framework. I don't let anybody else's opinion override my own,

judge a judger. And when I lose, because there is no judger, it's just the market. My book didn't sell, my sports card didn't sell, my business did bad. We got fired. I accept it. I own it.

When the market says you lost, you have to own it. It's like sports. Either you lost or you're won. And when you lose, you have to accept it. But anything that's a subjective judgment, judge the judger. That's how you get a relationship with fear. So good. Awesome.

Thanks for being on. Thank you. Bye-bye. I hope you enjoyed learning from Gary as much as I do. I am such a fan of this man. So appreciative to him for all he's done. He's the real deal. and he's all about the EQ is more valued than the IQ.

And I will tell you what, he definitely gets people, supports people, and has been fantastic to me. So I'm super grateful, but just remember it all starts with the ask. How are you bringing value? And then how are you asking for what you want in the moment when you're face to face with decision makers? That's the moment where magic always happens. Okay, I couldn't leave you going into 2020 without a little insight into how business is evolving, changing, how technology is impacting things. So why not invite the CEO of NetSuite on to give me and you a lesson in what we can look forward to moving forward in 2020 and beyond? But before we

go there, everybody's got a to-do list. Drop off the dry cleaning, pick up some milk. Here's an idea. Let's add save hundreds of dollars on car insurance. And the good thing is you don't have to drop off or pick up anything. All you have to do is go to go to Geico.com. And in 15 minutes, you could be saving 15% or more on car insurance. Extra money in your pocket. Who does not want that? It just may be the most rewarding to do that you do today. Hang tight. We're going to be right back. Hi, and welcome back. I'm really excited to introduce you to Evan Goldberg. He's the founder and EVP of NetSuite. Thanks for being here, Evan. Thanks for having me.

So, Evan, for my listeners that might not know about you, might not know about Netsweet yet, can you share with us your story professionally, personally, what led you to where you are now today at Netsweet? Yeah, thanks for asking that. So, yeah, it's been, Netsweet is an overnight success in 20 years. We started kind of out of my frustration when I had my first startup. not really having great tools to understand what was happening with my business and who my customers were and where I was making money, where I wasn't making money. And we had cobble together a bunch of different tools to sort of try to run that company.

And we had QuickBooks and we were selling on Yahoo stores and we had a contact management system for sort of our very, very primitive Salesforce automation. And in my mind, I imagined that they were much more sophisticated, you know, business management tools for big companies. As it turns out, there's lots of issues there, but they certainly weren't for smaller companies. So I kind of wanted to pivot in my next company to sort of solve that problem. And fortunately, I was lucky enough to engage with Larry Ellison.

who had a similar thought. Specifically, he was really excited about accounting and stuff like QuickBooks, but delivered as a web-based service. And this is in 1998, and the Internet had not really been used that way, and it was a few months before Salesforce.com had started. And so we kind of had a meeting of the minds

and agreed that we should build a company that builds business management, software applications, starting with accounting, but an entire suite, including things you need for running your sales and the things you need for running your web store and things you need for running your HR and your people management, but delivered on the web. So small companies wouldn't have to deal with the complexities of running their own software. and that was pretty novel back then. And fortunately, you know, NetSuite's, that vision that we had of everything that you need to grow your business all in one place is something that we've been focused on for 20 years.

And that brought us to where we are today. So you mentioned being an overnight success over 20 years, which I find very comical. Was it difficult in the beginning or when you look back, were there challenging times? Well, the most challenging thing was that it was quite novel to, you know, have your business data on the internet. And people were just getting used to, you know, just buying books. And so, you know, that took some convincing. We had early adopters that sort of got it. but, you know, especially companies in their finance operations can be, you know, pretty cautious.

And we were dealing with CFOs and controllers that weren't quite sure that they were comfortable with that yet. And I would have to make the pitch like, well, where is your data now? And when they thought about it, they're like, oh, well, it's on a computer somewhere. And I'm like, well, do you know where that computer is? Do you know who has access to it? do you know if someone could just, you know, take a, put a disc into it? There weren't flash drives back then and just steal all your information. And, you know, when they started to think about it and then we described the fact that we were in a professionally run data center with, you know, biometric security and et cetera, et cetera, and backup, you know, and backup capabilities, et cetera, then they could see that this could, but we really had to do a lot of convincing.

Fortunately, you know, that obviously there was a lot, there was a larger current of companies starting to deliver services over the web, certainly Salesforce.com and other services like that that helped, you know, overall get people kind of, you know, to cross that chasm and within And maybe about, I'd say, a decade or so, it really was, instead of us having to play defense, it was the companies that offered you software where you had to manage it. And they started playing defense because instead of customers asking, well, why would I want to put my information on the internet? It was more like, well, why wouldn't I? Why would I want to manage it myself?

Why wouldn't I want to put it and let someone else manage it for me? So that was one of the biggest challenges early on. And, you know, we overcame that with the help of just sort of the trajectory of the industry. Well, that's very impressive because my hardest sales moments have been with CFOs and extremely analytical and cautious type. So you get mad props for that. So now I understand that assisting nonprofits is of great value to you in Netsweet. What role does Netsweet play in this process?

Yeah, so, you know, it's a similar sort of grassroots story on that, which was that, you know, similarly to how it was my experience in running my own company that led me to want to build something like NetSuite. It was my experience dealing with a local not-for-profit and my wife was president of the PTA and the PTA ran on actually two copies of QuickBooks, which was amazingly complex for a tiny little current teacher association. And one of the reasons was because people like to work at home. So the person that did the expenses did it on their copy of QuickBooks and the person

that did the donations did it on their copy of QuickBooks. Well, that didn't look like the right way to run an organization like that. I suggested that maybe they'd want to get on NetSuite and then you could just have one copy of the data and everything sort of working together. And once we did that and it was successful and it was really helpful, you know, volunteers could work at home. Anyone, you know, that was on the executive team from their own computer could see what was happening with the organization sort of financially.

And that, you know, that really was, to me, was the great thing. It's just having information about your business, you know, anytime, anywhere. I saw that that was probably going to be a challenge for other not-for-profits. I mean, the reality is that especially these days where not-for-profits are scrutinized for how they spend their donors, their, you know, donations, and they want to, obviously, they want to maximize their impact, and that's all about ROI and understanding, you know, your outcomes, what kind of outcomes are you getting for the money that you're spending?

And a system like NetSuite is exactly what you sort of need to do that analysis. And so over the years, we've filled up quite a sophisticated program within our organization to give away, donate the service, to smaller nonprofits to offer it commercially, but at highly discounted rates to larger nonprofits. And we even have a part of the program, which we call Oracle NetSuite Social Impact, whose mission really is to help great organizations do good better.

We have a portion of that program where employees of Oracle NetSuite can donate pro bono hours to help our grantees get the most out of NetSuite. And that's sort of a win, win, win. it's a win for us because obviously we want the service to run as well as possible for our customers, both for profit or not for profit. It's a win for the employees. They get to learn more about how NetSuite works.

A lot of these might be engineers that don't necessarily always get to see how NetSuite works in a real organization. They get out to real organizations or sometimes we bring the organizations to the office. They meet the people that are doing it. Maybe it's an organization that they're passionate about. So they get to help out an organization that they love. and also learn more about how NetSuite works. And then finally, you know, we think it's a big win for the organizations themselves to optimize the use of NetSuite as they grow.

And NetSuite is really about navigating the challenges as you grow, whether you're, you know, a not-for-profit company or a commercial enterprise. What kind of feedback are you getting from your employees, your team, working now in this nonprofit element that might be new to them? Well, you know, I think sometimes they didn't necessarily. expect when they came on board at NetSuite that that's the type of thing that they would be doing I mean I think a lot of times you know a lawyer that comes into a large legal firm you know that's sort of you know standard that there will be pro bono

work and you'll get to work on that and so you know that's that's what you know that's an expected part of your of your duties and something that I think they get inspired by and so for us our employees I think didn't necessarily come to Netsweet knowing that that would be something that they'd be doing but the feedback we've gotten is tremendous. We hold these buildathons, which are sort of, you know, basically hackathons where we'll bring together a bunch of employees in several organizations and they'll spend, you know, 24 hours intensively working on something. And usually there are problems like the organizational say, here's a program that we have to help, you know, the people that we're

trying to help. And this is a new program, and we want to be able to measure it and get metrics on it so we know whether it's working, can you help us extend NetSuite so that we can make the system be able to track that information, which isn't the standard information maybe the NetSuite tracks, but NetSuite is very flexible, allows you to extend it to track new things. And so they'll get together for 24 hours and they'll build the beginnings of the system that they need to track that activity and so get great feedback, both from the employees that get to do that and hone their net sweet skills and from the organizations to come back and say, yeah, I've learned so much now that we're actually tracking this new activity that we're doing.

And such opportunity for innovation through this project, too, which is really exciting. Definitely. And, you know, we certainly an incredibly important part of the employee experience, I think at all companies is being able to be creative and innovative and learning new things. and so that, you know, it's a great, and we encourage, you know, as many of our employees as possible. We've done it. Something like a thousand employees have done it over the last 12 months and participated in these kinds of activities, these pro bono activities, and we're going to continue to promote it within our employee base. Such a great idea.

Can you tell me how you've managed to work the concept of empathy into your business? Yeah, well, I mean, I think, you know, design thinking, which is certainly the way a lot of product, companies that are producing some kind of product or service are thinking about how they extend and improve their product or service. Really, empathy is probably the key component. And I think empathy works its way into lots of different things, not just, and certainly it's very important when we think about how to improve the service. And we'll use personas and user stories and many of those techniques to really try to get inside the mind of the people that are using the product. Of course, the most important thing is that we spend time with customers at their site

or bring them in together in groups where they can collaborate and share ideas. And through that, really try to become one with what these users are experiencing on a day-to-day basis, what their pain points are, what their opportunities are. because it's not, you know, it's both about eliminating the drudgery of people's jobs, but also showing them insights and making them more productive and making them feel like they're doing more with less. And so I think that's, you know, it's critical for our product development. But I also think it's critical within an organization in so many ways. I mean, that's how you should be thinking about how you interact with other employees.

And that's probably the most important way that you use. can make sure that you're being sort of as thoughtful and productive in your working relationships is to try to put yourself in the other person's shoes or walk a mile in their shoes. And so I think across the board, it's a critical practice and being successful in business. And these type of practices always start at the top. So it's so good to hear that you're embracing it and making empathy a priority. It's great for your customers. You're employees, and I definitely applaud that. Where do you see your business going in the future? Well, I think that two of the most exciting trends that are happening to business software,

to any of the tools that people are coming into work and using, is that people are expecting more from them. And the generation of employees that's coming into the workplace now grew up with technology. They grew up with great user experiences and they don't, you know, they don't expect to take a big downgrade, you know, during their workday. And so I think you're going to see a next generation of tools in the workplace that have extraordinary user experiences that people don't complain about, you know, and that people feel like really do empower them to do their job as well as they can. So that's certainly something that we're extremely focused on, especially for our customers who typically are fast-growing businesses that have sort of outgrown their initial

accounting and or, you know, contact management packages or their web store and they're, they're growing fast and they need something more powerful that ties everything together. So they, but they're coming from tools that were designed for small companies and they don't expect when they use a tool that's maybe for a mid-sized company that's, they're going to be a mid-sized company that's, They shouldn't have to take downgrade, and in fact, hopefully what we'll do is give them even an improved user experience. So that's one area that I think is going to be huge over the coming decade. And the other area that you read all about is, of course, AI and machine learning.

And for me, that's just more ways to give an incredible business experience to people using these tools. And it's intelligent assistance. It's insights that the computer might be able to unearth. They won't always be right, but they'll give you great. ideas oh I didn't I didn't know that my customers that buy this segment of my of my product catalog tend to be like this you know like that and and and so just kind of those kinds of patterns that that the system can on earth I think

are going to be really helpful for insight into your business and then just automation making it easier to do your daily task because we see what you do we see what all of our users do and we figure out ways where they're getting stuck, how we can automate things better, how we can have them, you know, have better visibility. We notice that you are looking at this report frequently. You have to click ways to get it. Why don't we just put it right on your dashboard? So I think the assistance that can come from AI and machine learning by using it, you know, to solve very concrete problems similar to what we see in consumer devices. So when your phone, when you get in your car, says,

There's traffic on the way to work. You might want to go this different way. I mean, there's a lot of intelligence. It's a relatively simple thing, but there's a lot of intelligence there because, A, it's figured out that you're probably driving to work and, B, of course, it's going to analyze the traffic and how you usually go and figure it out a better way. So solving practical problems and giving intelligent assistance is a huge direction for us over the coming years.

What kind of advice do you give to people when I hear you talking about automation? I hear from a lot of people they're afraid, how will my job be affected? moving forward, will my job be relevant? What kind of direction do you give to those people and they express that fear to you? Yeah, well, you know, in fact, that's before even thinking about the robopocalypse and AI, for 20 years, we've been dealing with the fact that systems like NetSuite and cloud-based systems do eliminate some of the work that people were otherwise doing in terms of maintaining software, maintaining upgrades. I mean, we do the upgrade.

We take the pain of the upgrade for you. I mean, there's no more upgrading with NetSuite. You'll get new capabilities. They come periodically, but it's not something where you have to actually manually figure out how to get the new version of the software working. So we take on that burden. You know, worrying about like what version of the operating system use, things like that. That's not an issue when you're dealing with Internet software.

So people were thinking, oh, well, that's what I spend a lot of my time doing. What am I going to do now? But typically what we see in organizations is that the people that did that work redeploy themselves to much more productive things. And basically helping users get the most out of the system, rather than spending a lot of time just trying to get the thing up and running. They spend much more of their time looking at how to optimize, how to optimize the user experience, you know,

and responding to their users more frequently and more effectively. And so, you know, it's not about elimination of jobs. It's really about optimizing what people are doing. And so I think that's similar to what I think is going to happen with the type of intelligent assistance that we're talking about putting into the heart of the system. That's great to hear. Well, I know you're very busy, Evan, so I'll let you go. but before I let you go, how can everyone find out more about NetSuite,

sign up for some of your programs, and learn more? Absolutely. Well, go to NetSuite.com. We have wealth of information about how it can be appropriate for your type of business or nonprofit organization. And there's very easy ways to sign up and learn more. So I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it today. Thanks so much, and we'll be right back. Zoom didn't invent video conferencing.

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And meet Happy with Zoom. So I hope you enjoyed this new different format mashing up a couple of different interviews. Hopefully it brought you twice the value. I do not want to talk too much right now because I'm constantly worried. I'm going on and on, although I have so much to say. It's very frustrating. But I'm super excited for 2020. I had no idea what was coming in 2019.

And I feel the same way about 2020. I hope you'll join me. I'm definitely going to set some very specific goals, some measurable goals. And really for me, my first month, January is going to be focused on meditating once a day. and my gratitude practice, three things I'm grateful for. Those are very small things to focus on. But one of the reasons why I like it is it's measurable, actionable, I can do it. I definitely have the time to do those two things.

That's 10 minutes out of my day, each day. You can do it too. And I also know it will create massive change for me. So if you want to join me doing that, I would love for you to join me. I will be talking about this each week on the show, on my progress, on how my goals are morphing. hoping to get feedback from you. Hit me up on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on Twitter. I want to hear what goals you're setting for yourself, what action steps you're taking to set yourself up for success. And I want to share a question that came into me. One of my past employees back in corporate America

sent me a note saying that he and his wife had come up with an amazing idea and potential business. they had filed for copyright, they had created a prototype, you know, taken a lot of action steps that are really important. However, he was freezing now around the idea of finding a manufacturer he can trust when he felt his ideas might get stolen. So I gave him the same feedback that I took from Sarah Blakely when I interviewed her. You know, she drove to North Carolina and met with every single manufacturer there was. Not one. She was scared of anyone taking her ideas too, but she decided if she didn't have speed to market, somebody else could come up with that same idea she had and beat her to the punch.

So she filed for all the proper paperwork and then she took her ideas on the road. And she ended up really connecting with one manufacturer and he had daughters and they were talking about Sarah. And when she had a follow up phone call with him, she just felt differently about him than anyone else. And that's who she ended up partnering with. And needless to say, Spanx is now valued it more than a billion dollars. And it was a very good decision. So the key is take action, follow your gut, trust your instincts. And when you get that feeling, go for it. Let nothing stop you. You can be sitting on the sidelines a year from now, scared someone's going

to steal your idea. But I promise you this. If you had the idea, somebody else will eventually too. And sometimes it's just the speed to market that makes a difference. So don't let that hold you back. Go all in for 2020. I can't wait to hear your big, massive goals. Mine are huge. Yes, we're still going after Reese Witherspoon. Yes, we're going after so many amazing things. And yes, I know they're not all going to come together, but I can promise you this. Some big ones will come that we don't even know about yet. So can't wait for the ride. So excited that you're here with me. I can't wait to hear back from you. As always, if you can share the podcast, if you can leave a review, it helps so much. And here's looking forward to all that you're going to achieve in 2020 and beyond.

I'm here with you.