Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Decoding Disruptors: Cindy Eckert, CEO at The Pink Ceiling

Episode Date: February 22, 2020

Decoding Disruptors takes a deep dive into the minds of extraordinary women who have disrupted the narrative in their businesses, industries, and communities. The team at Finding Mastery, Compete to Create, and Microsoft worked together to bring this series to life. I had the chance to interview 9 amazing women, every conversation was filmed, and is currently available at decodingdisruptors.com.On the website you’ll also find a Disruptor Assessment— this quick assessment tool will help you measure your mindset skills and illuminates where you are on the road to becoming a disruptive business leader.We’re making a few of these conversations also available on the Finding Mastery podcast feed and this second conversation is with Cindy Eckert, a self-made serial entrepreneur.In the past ten years, Cindy has founded and sold two billion dollar pharmaceutical businesses.A modern day Erin Brockovich, Cindy took on the FDA – and won – to get approval of the first ever drug for low sexual desire in women, dubbed the “female Viagra” by the media.At the time, there were 26 drugs on the market for low sexual desire for men and not a single one for women.The drug was initially rejected by the FDA despite the data and science that supported its need and efficacy...In Cindy’s view, she had to battle a gender bias in healthcare that wasn’t about whether women needed drugs for low libido, but “does women’s sexual pleasure even matter”. Cindy’s company, The Pink Ceiling, champions the interests of women through its “Pinkubator”, providing funding and mentoring to help female entrepreneurs break through the “pink ceiling.”If there’s a rule that exists for no reason other than a societal narrative, Cindy will break it – and she’ll do it wearing blazing hot pink. _________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Okay, welcome to Decoding Disruptors. This is a special edition of the Finding Mastery podcast, and it is presented without interruption by Microsoft. And I couldn't be more excited to partner with Microsoft to bring this series to life. Decoding Disruptors takes a deep dive into the minds of extraordinary women who have disrupted the narrative in their business,

their industries, and their communities. And I had the chance to interview nine amazing women for this series. And every conversation was filmed and is currently available at DecodingDisruptors.com. And along with those videos on the website, you can also take the disruptor assessment. And the Compete to Create team was so inspired by the insights of these women that we're running a pilot assessment to spark awareness for you of some of the psychological skills related to the path of disrupting the narrative in your own life. And all of that's available for you to explore, to play, to learn, to generate some insights from the assessment and the videos. It's all available at DecodingDisruptors.com. Now, the second Decoding Disruptors conversation is with Cindy Eckert. Cindy Eckert is a self-made serial entrepreneur. In the past 10 years,

Cindy has founded and sold two billion dollar pharmaceutical businesses. Just like a modern day Erin Brockovich, Cindy took on the FDA and won to get approvals of the first ever drug for low sexual desire in women dubbed the female Viagra by the media. And at the time, there were 26 drugs on the market for low sexual desire for men and not a single one for women. So talk about disruption, right? But this conversation and decoding disruptors is not just about, okay, coming in and disrupting an industry. It's really much more subtle.

Of course, it's about the psychology of disruption. And in Cindy's view, she had to battle a gender bias in healthcare that wasn't about whether women needed drugs for low libido, but the question that was posed to her, does women's sexual pleasure even matter? I mean, come on. Cindy's company, The Pink Ceiling, champions the interests of women through its Pinkubator. And they're providing funding and mentoring to help female entrepreneurs break through the pink ceiling, as she calls it. And if there's a rule that exists for no reason other than societal narrative, Cindy will break it. And she'll do it wearing blazing hot pink. So punch over to Decoding

Disruptors.com to watch the videos and take the assessment. And with that, let's jump right into this audio version of Decoding Disruptors with Cindy Eckert. Cindy, how are you? Doing great. Yeah. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited because you have really held a banner for a very disruptive way of being in healthcare and so thank you for for this. I appreciate it. I don't know that any of my peers like claim me as one of their own because I have been very disruptive to what we think we know about pharma. Yeah what does that mean with your peers? You know I think that I'm a buck, sort of the conventional norm,

which isn't always well received inside of an industry. But that's okay. There's always room for originality. Do you see yourself as more of an insider or an outsider? Oh, outsider, absolutely. And then has it been that way for a long time for you? Or is that something just in the farmer world? No, I think really my whole life. So I had an unusual childhood and I grew up. So

I'm from upstate New York, Rochester, New York, practically a Canadian. And my dad comes home one day and he says, hey, do you want to go to Fiji? And I'm going to say this was before, I don't want to date myself too much, but this is before Fiji water and five-star resorts. And so I did what every like average middle-class American kid would do. I ran into the living room, I spun the globe and I was like, where's Fiji? Oh, it's the other side of the world. And I thought that'd be fun. And he said, great, because we're moving there. Like you naturally do, right? If you're from upstate New York, you move to the Fiji Islands. And so in that sense, I moved that year and that was the fourth grade. And then every single year through my senior year

of high school, I changed schools. And and so outsider new perpetual new kid totally so you've had to figure out on your feet how to adjust to environments yes yeah without any choice right when you're little and you go and I think you know I went probably like any kid kicking and screaming every time it was a oh I just gotten beyond the like new kid status. And now I was gonna, you know, I accepted and it was time to move again. But in hindsight, it really laid the foundation. Okay, so I want to get into like, the part of your story that leads us to how you've been disruptive in healthcare. But this is a central part is that you figured out how to be you had to ground yourself in some way in new environments.

And so walk us through the narrative of how you got to pharma, how you got to healthcare. So, you know, thankfully, I had a wonderful business professor who recognized in me, I had some love of what made certain businesses tick. And she gave me extra credit assignments, mandatory extra credit assignments. And I would have to go and read about different businesses. And like every week I would come in and tell her, you know, what I had learned and why that was different. And she was really cultivating that. And thanks to her, along that path, I categorically made the decision of who I was going to go work for. So I was going to go work for Fortune's most admired company, period. That's who I wanted to work for. I was going to go learn from the best.

I could apply it anywhere. And it just so happened at the time, Fortune's most admired company was Merck, which is a huge pharmaceutical company. Could have been Xerox, could have been whoever. It happened to be Merck. And I told her I was going to get the job. And then I think she had a little bit of panic, like, wait wait a minute you should probably have some backup plan here like I don't know and I said no I'm going to get the job they weren't hiring when I graduated from school and

seven months later they were and I got the job and I can remember calling her her name was Professor Feeney and I said I got the job and she said great, great, we're going out. And you're buying. So that was a good first lesson, right? What did you do in that frame between, I'm not sure if I can get this job. It's one of the glamorous ones. Right, it was, yeah. How did you back into the internal structure to say, I'm going for it? Well, I think that it was non-negotiable with myself. Like I had made a decision.

I was going to work for Fortune's most admired company, and I might not get it the first time, but I was going to get it one of the times. And I thought, you know, I will get the job, provided I'm the best prepared and can make the best impression. And I think I was just hell bound and determined that that was going to happen.

Okay. Let's keep rewinding. Okay. Because there's lots of conviction in that thought. Yeah. I'm going to get that job. Sure. Right. Okay. So go one or two or 15 steps backwards.

What are the life experiences or people that allowed you to, or presented themselves for you to be in a place to say, I'm going to be able to go do something that most people in my community haven't done. I owe a lot to my parents, and they really, I think, expected that kind of conviction from me all of the time. And it wasn't about, and I talk a lot about this

even to female founders I work with today, because we have a huge discussion around confidence. And I will promise you that like in the moments I am not I might be nervous my palms may be sweating but at the heart of it I know that I'm capable and I think they reinforce that capability through all of those years so that it wasn't blind confidence like I'm so great about for sure gonna get this but I am absolutely capable of getting this. Even if it is not immediate, I will get there at some point. What did they do to help you believe in those

capabilities? They reinforced that. It's what they sort of congratulated me on. The congratulations weren't on the highest score. The congratulations were on the resourcefulness to go and figure something out. And in fact, I've shared this story with you, but I tell you that my parents, when I used to ask for homework, they would always say the exact same four words, which were, what do you think? Which was infuriating as a kid who wanted the leg up or the quick, you know, the quick A, whatever it may be. And what they were really doing is forming this ownership like ownership at my core so much so that I eventually became an owner right of my own business my own destiny but that was really creating

that capability and the ability to go out and ask other people for help and my independent thinking along the way hmm okay what are you capable of? Anything I set my mind to. Does that mean that you're capable to adjust? Mine is sports. I have a huge limitation here, hold on one second, my big brothers will be watching this. Anything other than sports. Okay, so less sport. Are you capable of adjusting to something that doesn't go your way? I mean, if you think about just the roadmap of my career, very little was going to naturally go my way, including the things that I decided to take on were very unconventional.

And so that was okay. And I think that even along the way, I've certainly had detractors from what I was trying to do. And I met with them as much as I met with the supporters because it was equally important to hear that point of view, to consider it, and to be able to figure that out, to push through. So I think keeping sort of an open-mindedness throughout it and knowing that you can figure it out, but always listening. So I went to work for Fortune's Most Admired, right? I went to the best of the best. And then I realized they probably

were that because they had an exceptional PR department. And while they certainly had good practices, like I was not going to be content to be in a big environment. I wanted to be heard. I wanted to make a mark. And I loved this industry. Wait, I need to stop there. I want to be heard. I want to make a mark. So that sounds like part of your inner narrative. Yes. Right. So that's part of your psychology. Sure. And where, where does that come from? Yeah. Two big brothers who would never listen to me. Seriously? Well, I don't know. They would say I've always wanted to be heard. I know. I think it was like, you know, why would you be content to create value and be a number? There's no way. Like I really, like I showed up all in to do this job and I didn't want to be employee number 7,241. Like that was never going to sit well with me. It was really about being

pushed. And at the time, my big brother was in the startup so this is back in the early dot-com days i'm watching him and i'm like wait a minute like one they listen to you two you have skin in the game you give equity for the value that you're creating and that was it that was the buy i he had an opportunity to do a friends and family round in this company and I had no money, but like I ate rice every day for a year and like saved money to put like this tiny little bit in. I put it, they went public, I made money and I was like, peace, I'm going into startups. And then I went through a series of companies and went progressively smaller because I wanted to be pushed. Like I wanted to be in the kind of environment that said, hey do you want to do this? You actually don't know

anything about it, but you can figure it out. And that was like the adrenaline rush for me up until the time that I said you know what I'm doing it for myself. What are the big notes? For the career? Biggest bet first was betting on myself to start a company. I called it Slate, which is truly clean slate. Doing it on my own terms, right? Completely loved an industry that I was in for what it could do, hated how they got it done. And so I thought, well, hell, like I'm going to go out, I'm going to pick other people and we're going to do it a little bit differently. And it worked. And so when I first bet on myself, I started Slate and And Slate had at the time one of the drugs for male sexual dysfunction.

There were 26 of them and not a single one for women. And that math didn't add up because we actually had the science to understand the biological basis for women's low libido. But we had a strong societal narrative. So I took that business, sold it off in men, profitable. My board wasn't so sure about it and took this on because this calling was so much bigger for me. It was such a bigger issue in healthcare. And so did that, got punched in the face by the FDA when they turned me down,

punched them right back because I had the data. I fought the FDA. I want to call that the road less traveled to take on the US government. A lot of lessons through that and ultimately won its approval. And so that was a critical moment. Okay, so the 26 to 0, the narrative is that women don't need drugs or medication for libido? Is that the narrative? Oh, I think the narrative is, does pleasure really matter for women? Oh, really? I think it's much bigger than that. I think that it is, do we value satisfaction for women?

Oh, it's almost insidious when you say it that way. Like, it's really a corrupt bias. It's a narrative. It's not a naive bias. Well, I think it is a cultural narrative that would focus only on reproduction for women and realize well you know they can have sex whether or not they like it so do we do we really think that it's all that important. And I think that's truly at our core and I don't know that everyone is so conscious of that but they've probably grown up with that narrative.

Okay so you say wait a minute that's not really how this is working. Right? Yeah. And you said, we know from brain scan studies that there is a biological basis for a subset of women who have low libido, but we're going to categorically ignore that despite the fact that it's black and white. Nah. What percentage of women are you finding have low libido? So low libido, if you gave a survey, 30% of women would say they have

low libido. If you look specifically at this condition, which by the way we've had in the medical literature since the 70s, called hypoactive sexual desire disorder, HSDD, it's about 10%. Hypoactive meaning slower. Low. Yeah, low. Yeah. So 10%. One in 10 women is not a small number who are dealing with this today. But we're dismissing it? That made no sense. And to your former framework, it makes

for a beautiful opportunity from a business standpoint. So you have both that you're working from. OK, so then- Well, when everyone else is running away, that's typically my signal to run in. When they zig, you zag. They're like, no way, not taking this on. I'm like, that'll be interesting.

Let's take that on. But for me, I'll tell you why. So in science, and probably in life, things come down to risk-benefit, which feels very objective. And then you realize it's totally subjective. Because if I assign no value to something, then any risk would be too great. And that's what we were doing. We were assigning no value to helping women who were suffering from this because of a societal narrative. Wow. So part of the way that you've approached this is that you demonstrated great value. Absolutely. So this is where you had trials and you had people that had the medication and they were saying, hey, this is really working.

Yes. You told that narrative. Of course. And then their narrative shifted the societal narrative a bit with your help and prodding and supporting. I think that the prodding was, well, why the hell aren't you talking to women who are living with it? Here's a revolutionary concept.

Let's listen. Let's put people at the center of the conversation who are actually dealing with it. And let's listen to their definition of success. Sounds right. Sounds pretty simple. Yeah, sounds right. Do you think that women as a whole, and this is where I'm going to get in trouble. Yeah. Because I don't know, right?

But is it okay to say, or was it okay to say, hey, I have a low libido? No. It doesn't seem like that would be an okay thing to do. It's not okay to say. Is it still now? It's changing. And I think the only way that it changes is to understand it's not because they're broken or they have failed. It is because of something going on that is completely outside of their control. I draw a lot of parallels to when we first came out with antidepressants, right? Imagine

that the old narrative was so different until we understood that there was a brain chemistry issue for some people that deserve to be addressed. I think the same will happen here. But it's very taboo still. Really, I want to drill into this a little bit because it's taboo for men to demonstrate weakness. Yes. Okay, traditional weakness. Actually, when I see any gender, male or female, be able to go to places that are soft and vulnerable and edgy and difficult and require that vulnerable space, it's like, wait, there's courage. That's not weakness because it's hard to be in those spaces in those moments. But let's use a traditional form of weakness and let's call it depression or sadness, right? It's hard for men, the sandbox we grew up in to say, it's okay to

cry. It's still not that. So at some point men had to say hey I'm sad and I need some help with this. I'm depressed. It's a medical condition, psychological disorder. And we're seeing great changes and strides there. No doubt. Right okay. So are you seeing the same rate of change or not maybe change but appreciation for women to hey, I want to get my libido right. I think that they have recognized if they don't own it, nobody's helping them with it, right? So they have to be their own advocate in this. And I think that they need to understand through validation that is something outside of their control, the science. You know, there's a lot

written on this. And I always sit there and go, can we just have an evidence-based discussion? Like, how about if we just go to the science, which gave us the answer a long time ago, and then figure out how we need to get out of our own way? Okay, so I think the corollary that I'm drawing on is that when a man says, hey, I have an anxiety disorder or depression, that there's an inherent weakness to deal with the unknown or emotions. I don't see it that way, but that's an inherent risk that's taking place. When a woman says, my libido is not right, I'm not working the right way, it doesn't feel,

I don't have the interest in sex that maybe I'm supposed to have, but this is just me. What is the risk for them to say, hey, I need some help? In more cases than not, it's actually letting their partner down. I mean, that's at least in all of the stories, and I have talked to thousands of women struggling with this. A lot of it is that. And a lot of it is that from nothing but a great place,

their friends will pat them on the shoulder and tell them it's okay. I'll tell you a story. So I met a woman along the way. She'd been in our trial. She said, I want to meet with you and tell you my story. And it was at the moment in time when I'd gotten rejected by the FDA. So I needed this. And I sat down with her. She walks in the room and like, I can see her coming a mile away. She is type A. She is in charge. And she'd build her own business. She'd raise two beautiful boys. She loved her husband. Had, by all appearances, an excellent marriage. But she had this struggle

behind closed doors. And this is what she said to me. She said, I have succeeded in every aspect of my life other than this. And I saw the portrait of a woman. She'd raised her hand a thousand times. Something's changed, something's different, and she'd been patted on the shoulder and told to take a bubble bath and read a romance novel. And that was not okay. And so at that moment, I saw her sort of turn on herself and I said, can I show you something?

I popped open my MacBook, I start showing her the brain scan studies, I'm telling her what's happening, what are we seeing? And I turned to her and she's left the conversation. She's just pouring tears. And then in that moment, you know, I was crying too. That's why I did it. The validation.

It was really over the weekend before I walked into the company on Monday and said, guess what? We're going to dispute the FDA. For her. That's still alive in your mouth. Oh, it is. It still chokes me up. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Where do you feel it when you feel? What just happened for you? That has been what's kept me going is the, is it's not about the outcome for me. It was about letting others down. Like, you know, I can certainly conjure up the strength to have her never have that pat on the shoulder again. Like, I had an obligation once she was so kind as to share her story with me to go out and do it on her behalf.

What was the level of emotion that you just felt? I feel like... One to ten, what would you say? That's a five, six. That's a five or six? Yeah. And then at what point does it spill over and it becomes externalized? That's a five. That's a five or six? Yeah. And then at what point does it spill over and it becomes externalized?

Obviously, I can see it because this is my training. Sure. But I think that this is also an important thing that I'd like to understand is that there's a label, women are emotional, men are not. Sure. Men are like cognitive. Yeah. It's so wrong. Right.

Sure. Right? Yeah. But you just did something. You managed emotion in an eloquent way. Okay. So how did you do it? I mean, that tapping into that is not a weakness. Like feeling that at my core is the fuel of injustice. And the fuel of injustice will make you get up and get shit done. And I think that's really it. So letting myself feel that emotion is very important. And then when you feel it and it opens up inside of you, let's call it passion, right? But there's something where you feel that emotion, if you stayed on the narrative it could spill over yeah how did you use

it so that it stays as a facilitative part of you as opposed to something that's debilitating your ability to think or your whatever like how do you actually manage emotions why I think that I tap into them as a resource and then I I turn them to the drive. There it is. Okay. Right. So you're not trying to keep them down.

You're actually wanting those moments where you feel things. Yeah. And then quickly you go, there it is. Great. Is it like a gift? No, it's not a gift. That was my fantasy. You feel it and then all of a sudden you're like, yes, more energy.

That's not it. Well, I mean, no, I don't consciously know. But I do have an appreciation for that. And you're making me think of a story. So I'm going to just go on a tangent for a second here. I had some folks in who were very classic VCs, you know, venture capitalists, sitting in my office. And I had a woman come in to do a pitch. And she's sitting in there, and all of a sudden in the middle she just starts to like I can

feel it like she's starting and then she starts to tear up and start to cry and their reaction was done weak can't do this my reaction was I'm in there she is she's alive she's animated this is important betting on her because she just showed me what the stakes were. And I know she's going to wake up every day and crush it to get this done. And they have just missed it completely. Because they have assigned weakness to that emotion and that very raw passion that she felt inside. I love it. And I think it's a little crazy making to me as a

psychologist like we want people to live with passion. Sure. But emotions can't yeah emotions can't really be part of it there's only one way to show which is like this animation loud voice thing and that's so far from the truth. No doubt. Yeah we're multi-dimensional. Yeah. Okay. Let's go into the FDA piece. Okay. Okay. So you've got double-blind placebo trials, which is the highest standard of science. Of course. You've got great evidence at a significant level, not just meaningful, but significance in your findings. No doubt. Is that right? Yes. You submit it and you say, yeah, this, guys, we're gonna get it. It going to happen. Six months. We're going to be the one of 26. Absolutely.

We're going to get it. No doubt. And then what happens? They reject it. So you get a letter. Yes, on a Friday. That was a very bad weekend. Really, I had just landed.

The letter had come into the office. I got the call at the airport. I sat down on a bench, and I don't think I moved for two hours. And the reason I couldn't is because I had no idea what I was going to go tell my team. No idea. And then I said, well, that's what you're going to tell them. You have no idea. And I gathered them all around the table and I said, here, we just got a rejection. And it was double-blinded, placebo-controlled, met with statistical significance, outcomes that were pre-agreed with the FDA, blah, blah. It's just science, right? And we'd done all the work and we'd met it all. And so when I got the team around the table, I said,

I don't know what we do next because it was the end of the company. Like they completely had my fate in their hands. And so everybody went home and I'm sure they all went to work on their resume. And I took to the bed and cried it out. And the next day, I got that note from the woman who was on the drug in trials. And she said, I need to speak with you. And that was a critical inflection point. Because in that moment, and I think that's why I feel it. That was such an important defining moment for me and that's why on Monday I walked in

gathered them back around the table and said we're gonna dispute the FDA they said can you do that that was the first the first reaction like really yeah I mean it is the road less traveled it It is a path available, but not many people would choose to take it. What's it cost to do that? Oh, lots of money. So I'll tell you, when I first went forward, and the reason, when the FDA turned us down, they said, well, the benefit is only modest. I said, modest?

So women go from not having sex to having sex. From having mercy sex to satisfied sex. And yet you deem it modest? Modest is meaningful. They're not going to lose their life from this, but they're losing their life as they know it. And that's what really precipitated the force, if you will, of a very public conversation, them spending very public conversation, them spending time to women, and to their credit, they did it. They had all of these additional meetings.

They met with women who had the condition. And once they had done that and created open-mindedness, right, around the value of the benefit, we got a real fair shake on the science and got approved. But that was quite a a path what changed for them listening so you got them to listen you increased the the narrative so they could understand the value of the pain yeah and then you had a solution for that pain yes you did ask the question about cost i mean i will tell you can you imagine my shareholders? So I get rejected and make this radical decision to dispute.

Now all of a sudden the FDA, who has to save face as well, is doing additional trials. And we're going, that's $7 million more, that's $10 million more, that's $15 million more. I'd already been rejected. The fact that they hung with me was absolutely because it was more about what we were trying to do, which was change the conversation on women and sex forever. Rad.

Really disruptive, right? You had to disrupt the narrative for not only an institution, but for financial investors in your company. They were already kind of there but now it's a different conversation because we're kind of getting out of money here. Right? So it's a different conversation to get them to bet on you and bet on the vision. And if we go way upstream to what the vision

is for your company, what is the vision for your company? To change the conversation on women and sex forever. Okay, and then if that vision takes place, what does life look like for all of us? Everyone is happier. Everyone's having more satisfying sex. No, the vision looks like a case study in healthcare that changes the fact that 4% of investment dollars go to women's health.

Four. Come on. Four. And so we do pervasively in healthcare dismiss the value, if you will, of addressing something. And here's the dirty little secret. It's not that companies don't understand the commercial opportunity. It's that they know the path will be longer and the hurdles will be higher and we gotta change that okay so you're a risk taker yes okay financial risk taker yes is that okay yeah i'm just laughing because i want you to know i was in vegas not that long ago and was walking with friends like through the casino and they said hey want to hit the tables I said oh I don't gamble they're like like hell you don't gamble so yes a financial risk taker when I'm betting on me. Okay and then emotional risk taker? Yeah. Physical risk taker?

Jump out of airplane no. No okay. Social risk taker? Describe. Meaning that you'll do something socially that is true to you but might not be true to the room? Oh yeah. Yeah? Okay so there's this you have the you're laughing like that's basically your business is a layup for you but you have that ability within you to say the thing that matters most to you even when it's not socially approved. For sure. Okay. Moral risk? What do you mean by that? Most people want to say no to this. And moral risk is like getting on the edges of what most social structures think is ethical or moral. Yeah. But there's something else that's stirring you saying I want to cross that boundary and figure it out myself. Well, I'll tell you, I think that for me,

and I take on sex, which is totally taboo, and I think that by a lot of people's definition in terms of their own morality, they might not see a world in which women get to have the choice of pleasure. And so in that sense, yes, right? I think it's considered from a fairness to all kind of perspective. If there's a rule that exists for no reason at all other than a societal narrative, I will break it.

Okay. All right. So talk to me about your understanding of empathy and risk-taking. Yeah. Well, I gave a whole TEDx talk on this, which is really about the DNA of a rule breaker. And I think in particular, a female rule breaker, because I do believe there's all these rules of society, right? And there are rules of law and order that we all have to abide by. But there are so many unwritten rules for women. So many. And I really do feel like it's that empathy that gins up inside to problem solve it for yourself or others that make you break those rules. Help me understand

some of those rules. You know, I don't, I just can't begin to really know. I can maybe tick some off that we intellectually would say, yep, you got those, you got those. But as a woman, what are some of those rules that we're missing, that men are missing, that half of society is missing, if not more? Well, I think on the healthcare side, and let's even leave sex out of it, let's just say healthcare at large. If something goes wrong for a man, we go, oh, biology. Let's fix it. If something goes wrong for a woman, we go, oh, psychology. We we pat her on the shoulder, and we're dismissive. And the truth is in that we're harming both.

We're not considering the psychological aspect for men, but we are holding women back in terms of health care treatment on an even playing field. That's in the health care space, and that's a passion, obviously, professionally. From a business perspective, I think there's all sorts of rules about how you show up in a room and are you supposed to conform to the boys club and should you wear the sensible pantsuit and everything else. You're going to wear pink. And I'm going to wear blazing hot pink and we're going to have a conversation about that because if the reality is that the gender stereotype exists I have two

choices I can either lean back from that which is going to do two things to me it's either gonna cause self-doubt or a lot of frustration or I can just go right for it because it's actually the conversation we should be having I'm not a big fan of advice giving yeah but if you could shape a way to young girls, young women, right? So first girls, then women. Yeah. How would you suggest they go into rooms that are typically male-dominant or some other ecosystem that is not necessarily friendly to their point of view?

Unapologetically themselves. Okay. So come in. Don't try to fit in. Don't try to survey the land and understand the politics or, okay. So come in yourself. So then that means you've got to do a lot of work first to figure out who you are. I actually think the work for me became like along the career ladder was I started to anticipate that in a room. So my pregame, if you will, was to anticipate underestimation. And once I did that for myself,

I took all of its power away. And I really gamified. Underestimation is just an invitation to surprise people. Okay, so you're an optimist. You flip things to see what could be good. For sure. That's fun. Okay, so that's part of where you sit in when you assess a landscape. It's not like, damn it. Here I go again. It's like, okay, they're going to sell me short because of my gender. Yeah. And so now I've got the opportunity to surprise. Sure. They're gonna think I'm Elle Woods from Legally Blonde when I show up in hot pink and boy this is gonna be fun.

Watch this. And that's not them as bad people. And I think that's, you know, the childhood of all of this exposure to very different places in the world, people with, you know, their own limitations or their own limited view, it's okay. It's not taken away from you and actually there's a lot of fun in changing people's minds. How often do you watch the situation that you're in? So some people are completely immersed in it and engaged and some people are able to watch from a distance you know

from a corner of a room perspective and then zoom in zoom out yeah do you have a relationship between those two well i hope i'm fully present but there's no doubt like it's funny that you said that because it's something i have said for many years which is part of the moving perfected that kid on the outside of the room looking in and surveying the landscape. And I can remember actually when I was, I sold off my business and men to take this on for women. I was in a particular room in New York with some of like my heroes, you know, among women leaders. And I was so excited to tell them that I was going to do this. And if you had taken an aerial, I always says an aerial shot of the room. I said that I was going to do this. And if you had taken an aerial, I always say it's an aerial shot of the room.

I said what I was going to do, and the entire room moved away from me. And so I definitely have that perspective of, like, what's happening here? And, okay, well, that was very instructive. That's not a bad thing. That didn't, you know, in any way slow me down from what I was trying to do, but it was an important observation. Okay, so you do both. A little bit of both, yeah. I hope I can stay present. I've got to work on that all the time these days, right? With your phone and all the distractions.

I think that even when you're watching, though, it's still a presence. It's a meta-presence to see and understand what's happening. It doesn't mean that you don't get, you're not in it. When we're talking about not being present, it's more like I'm in another room. I'm trying to answer emails and not be here. But it's still a mechanism to be. Okay. How do you practice being present? Hmm.

Well, I really have insatiable curiosity, which helps me a lot. Like I love to hear people's perspective. I love to hear why they do what they do. And that probably I was helped in some way. Limitations will often help you, right? The roadblocks become the secret weapons. And when I looked at the beginning of my career and I looked up, nobody was in a hot pink

like dress at the top. They still aren't, as it turns out. There's only 3% of health care companies run by women. But, you know, we think of mentorship and that like very I'm looking up, right, for somebody who can help me. And I think it really forced me to look to my left and my right and recognize that mentorship was all around me and so that's the curiosity piece of it helps you be present because you know that everyone has something to teach you everyone has something to teach you and you learned that from early days or you

did you learn that by getting kicked in the stomach I think probably developed it or practiced it more once I was in my career, but because of exposures in childhood I was fortunate enough to have a you know an interesting sort of perspective and I yeah I dig I dig those conversations and what makes people tick. If the world played out the way you would hope, let's say it let's say 20 years let's say 15, 20, 25, 30 years it doesn't matter to me, but if it played out what would it look and feel like it would be an even playing field for female disruptors or disruptive technologies in women's health care that's how it play out

just just may the best man or woman win. And really that it wouldn't surprise people to have somebody show up in hot pink who was leading the company. That's part of it. Like when I invest in these female founders, I love them. I love the ideas. But I love that it's changing minds. And I recognize that they're overlooked by the system today. They are. And when they walk into the room, you know, they're sort of marginalized or, oh, sort of patted on the shoulder, if you will.

And when they have huge exits, all of a sudden, the next time someone who looks like them walks in the room, everybody reaches for their wallet. And that's real change. That's the fun. I have a lot of guys who laughed me out of the room when I went in to fundraise with them. And they call me today to try to get in on investments. And some of the, you know, ladies I'm around are like, you don't let them in, do you? I say, well, I give them a little bit of pain. Then of course I let them in because that's the only way you change it, right? I've given them a billion reasons why to believe. Right? I love that. Yes, literally you have. Do you have a chip on your shoulder? Yeah.

Yeah. And then where did that chip come from? I think perpetual underdog. You know, the new kid, the blue collar kind of family, all of those things. Like when I started a business, I didn't have a rich uncle to write me a check. You know, nobody was in my contact list who could do that for me. So you know, all of those things are not the kind of classical tea of to have success. And I think it's really healthy to have a little bit of a,

you know, a little bit of something to prove provided it's not destructive and you have a good sense of humor about it. And allow people the ability to not be the bad guys if they're not betting on you, but just be informing how to do it better on your own. Where do you get in your own way? What are the things that you say and do that slow you down, that, you know, make you feel small, whatever? Like what are the ways that you naturally get in your own way? When I worry about whether or not my hair is like out of place in an interview. I'm joking. Okay, where do I get in my own way? That's one.

Two is, you know, I'm so invested in like every aspect, including building the business, that I have to be very careful to not create a team structure where they're waiting for me. And that can be hard to make sure that I'm very clear on that, that I trust them implicitly. That's why they're there. I have the most incredible team. By no means do I get here on my own. I've been surrounded by incredible people. But because I get so into the details, I'm so excited about it, sometimes it will slow them down. And that's a failure on my part. When you think about culture, what is it that you're working to create? I like to call it constructive irreverence is really the brand of the culture. And I'll tell

you, it was born out of being in environments in which I was successful. I'm driven, I had a standard for myself, but I was totally uninspired. And I recognize in those cultures, they beat individuality out of the equation, right? They have a process, they make you all homogenized, and actually I think they lose all of that exception to the business. So that was really Slate, right? Slate was about, I can find other people like me who've been successful in these environments. I can put them all in the room. I can give

them permission to show up as themselves and just watch what we can do. And the hypothesis proved true. I love that. It's something very similar to what we're trying to create at the Seattle Seahawks with Coach Carol. It's a creative environment to celebrate people's uniqueness. And you know the idea is when people can bring them whole, their whole self into an environment that has consequence, that has pressure, that has risk, that one it's more meaningful because there's dignity to the person. And secondly we can connect

better. And we need each other to go the distance. Right? Nobody does this alone. To your point earlier. Yeah yeah so there's something very powerful about recognizing the essence of a person saying hey yeah be that more often as opposed to what you think you're supposed to be here it's one of our choices so I say there's six choices you have to make to work for me and I'll do them quick one is to choose to be an owner like fundamentally at your core the second is to choose to be bold and that's our total DNA of everything that we have done the third is to choose to be an owner, like fundamentally at your core. The second is to choose to be bold. And that's our total DNA of everything that we have done. The third is to choose to be quirky, which is a really weird choice, right?

To have somebody. But what I'm saying in that is show up as yourself. You have an environment in which you have permission. One of my quirks is I nickname everybody in my life. Like my mom has seven different nicknames. I nicknamed from the time I was a little girl. So everyone who works for me has a nickname. And if you come into our office, it's almost like we're speaking in code because people are like, who's Sharky? Who's something? Like they don't get it. And the beauty of the nicknames is that we know each other

differently through our stories. A lot of my team is outside of an office. They don't get to spend a lot of time. They're salespeople, but they know everybody's story and it connects us in a really powerful way the final are learning family and appreciative what does family mean choose family it's really about you know the greater the loyalty of the group toward the group the more likely they'll achieve their goals not my quote but you know really there is something about that aspect of and I think because I encourage this constructive irreverence you've got to be respectful always we push each other hard like inside of the confines of our office we will disagree we will push each other to be better but when we walk out that door it's locked arms against the world

what do you say to yourself that you wouldn't say to other people? This is the darker side. This is the side that's got some edges. There's some scratchiness to it. For me, you know, I think it's lonely. That's the dark side is that you can really, I think, sit in a loneliness in it, in which you feel like you're way out front. You got a ton of arrows in your back. I think that's the hardest part, you know, is how do you figure that out in those moments? Because by optics, like one for your team, you got to come in and you've got to get them rallied to go into battle every day. And at least in our world, we go into battle every day. And so that's the hardest

part, I would say. How do you manage that loneliness? How do you work within yourself to be able to shift that narrative, to work with that narrative? This is a failure over the course of my career. I never really spent a lot of time networking. Heads down, do the work. Heads down, do the work. And I knew that it was sort of mine. I was on that journey alone, and that was okay. And that was a mistake. The reality, at least as I talk to female founders today, is develop that network. And in fact, it's something I look for in them when I invest in them, is how well have they already developed the network?

Because I know they're going to be lonely. And they're going to need to pick up the phone and have a lifeline to somebody who gets them through it. So I tease that out, actually, in questions I'm talking to them, not because I did it, but because I failed to do it. And so now, I mean, look, I'm very fortunate. I have a wonderful network today, but that's been very intentional work for me to go out and build that because I know I need it. What does your inner circle look like? Well, it's one hell of a group of women. I mean, it's really, you know, exceptional women I'm surrounded by. I'm so close to my team and I feel like I have privilege to know, you know, these incredible women

now who are just a phone call away to really help. In your daily rhythm of business, how much time do you spend on relationship with people? Understanding them, where they're at, supporting them, them knowing you as well. The processes to be efficient, and then the performance aspects of the job. And the reason I ask is because one of the teams that I'm part of, the Seattle Seahawks, we're a relationship-based organization.

It matters. And so I'd like to understand, in a highly outcome-based world, where you have to get results, how do you spend your time with people? I would say 80% relationship, 20% performance and process is not relevant. The rest of the group takes care of that. I mean it doesn't mean you don't have to have any processes, but performance will be dictated by me investing that time in the relationship piece.

That's the truth of it. Like, you know, there are outcomes and I'm certainly dealing with the team on those. But it is about that connection and really that loyalty that we have to one another for how well they'll perform in my environment. Very cool. How do you do it? What is your mechanism? Well, I don't want to bias it. Like, how do you do it?

Well, I'll tell you that in the simplest way, we eat lunch together every day as a company. And it started off as a, you know, no death by meeting. We're going to sit down and break bread together every day. And at least everyone in the company will always be on the same page for what's going on. There's never any surprises. And that has taken on its own life form. Over the years, our table just keeps getting bigger. At one point I can remember I was building out new office space and they said well we'll put a cafeteria in here and

they'll be I'm like nope we sit together at one table and it looks a little bit like the Last Supper at this point it just keeps getting longer. It's really that we come together and we spend that quality time together and if they're in the field I'm always texting them and we slack each other ad nauseam. There's tons of trash talk with each other, just cheering each other on and competing. How do you think about competition? It's fun.

There's a couple ways to think about it. I'm trying to be better than you? Yeah, oh no. Or I'm trying. I'm beating my personal best. That is imperative. My best versus being better than your best. That is imperative. My best force versus being better than your best. A hundred percent. Yeah. And that's something systemic in your organization

that you're helping your people. Absolutely. Try to find their best. For sure. Okay. For sure. You're really clear about that. Very clear. I got to tell you, I have one of my best performing sales reps just taught a new sales training class. And, you know, inherently people think, oh, well, they don't want to give up any of their tricks no no way like and the way that you do that is that everybody has skin in the game everyone who comes to work for me is an owner in the company and it takes all of that competition to beat somebody else out of the room because we are competing to win as a collective i love it i mean i've seen that to be one of the primary sustainable approaches to doing hard things. Agreed.

Is that because there's so much noise, the signal is, what can I do in this moment to be my best? How can I make those micro adjustments according to my true north? Yep. And do you have mechanisms in place to help people understand their vision, their philosophy, what True North is for them? Formally, I don't know that I have that. I think it's just a lot of this relationship build where we're constantly talking in those terms that get you to those conclusions. So can I say that I'm the best at a particular coach or training program or anything else? I'm not in all candor. I think it's a lot about just that touch point constantly with the group.

What does the makeup of your organization look like? Gender versus ethnicity versus age. Like what, what does that swath look like? Very diverse. And disproportionately women, I will say, who've come to work for me, but you know, we come from all walks of life and that doesn't just mean our age, our gender, our ethnicity. I mean, it's also, you know, like how we grew up. Like, are there the, you know, the kids who were the scholarship kids versus other? And I think that's so important in the room as we make decisions, because we all

have a very different point of view. even though we come from all walks of life There's really a universality to us and that's that we're all misfits Like we are truly, you know The land of the misfit toys and I think a lot of startups would describe themselves that way But that's an important part of our DNA awesome. Well, I mean what a great conversation to understand Where you've come from your inner abilities to adjust, your ability to have clarity of what True North looks like and the culture that you want to create

towards that aim and to actually back it up and do the work. Like, thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this

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