Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Entrepreneur Anne Devereux-Mills on Leadership, Philanthropy, Parenting

Episode Date: January 18, 2017

Anne Devereux-Mills is an incredibly accomplished human. She was the chairman and CEO of a number of ad agencies in New York City – which is a massive undertaking. She then transitioned from the corporate world to non-profit programs such as helping start a school in Uganda. She’s had a phenomenal life journey and faced many obstacles -- including being a single mom of two while battling cancer. Anne is now the Chief Strategy Officer for Lantern, a San Francisco based start up that brings mental wellness programs to underserved populations due to the stigma of mental health, access and cost. She is also the founder of Parlay House, a salon-style gathering of over 800 Bay-area women who meet to pull each other forward through a combination of shared experiences, meaningful content and peer-to-peer connections I wanted to connect with Anne to better understand how she's been able to do so much in her life – not just in one arena, but so many arenas. As a single mom parenting, running a business in a male dominated industry, blazing trails in Uganda, battling cancer-- all of that is just an incredible effort and she’s been able to it in a world class way. I hope you'll be reminded from this conversation how important authenticity is -- and how important relationships are -- and how important it is to take risks and do the hard work._________________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.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

It's intentionally built for deep work. So there's no social media, no email, no noise. The writing experience, it feels just like pen on paper. I love it. And it has the intelligence of digital tools like converting your handwriting to text, organizing your notes, tagging files, and using productivity templates

to help you be more effective. It is sleek, minimal. It's incredibly lightweight. It feels really good. I take it with me anywhere from meetings to travel without missing a beat. What I love most is that it doesn't try to do everything. It just helps me do one very important thing really well,

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. Are you at the intersection of what you care about, what you do well, and what you value? And if you are, that's when you become a master of craft. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And the idea behind these conversations is to learn. It's to learn from people who are on the path of mastery to better understand what they're searching for, to understand how they explain the world, how they understand it

at a rich level, to celebrate their unique journey, and to dig deep to understand the mental skills that they've been using to build and refine their craft. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools, the right information at the right time. And that's where LinkedIn Sales Navigator can come in. It's a tool designed specifically for thoughtful sales professionals,

helping you find the right people that are ready to engage, track key account changes, and connect with key decision makers more effectively. It surfaces real-time signals, like when someone changes jobs or when an account becomes high priority, so that you can reach out at exactly the right moment with context and thoroughness that builds trust. It also helps tap into your own network more strategically, showing you who you already know that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction.

In other words, it's not about more outreach, it's about smarter, more human outreach. And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal for two full months for free. Terms and conditions apply. Fighting Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and

think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day. One a day. What do you mean one a day?

There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right, look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show,

it's a great episode, by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're

trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash findingmastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash findingmastery. Now, this conversation is with Anne Devereaux-Mills. Anne is an incredibly accomplished human. I mean, she was the chairman and CEO of a number of agencies in New York City, which is a massive undertaking. And then she transitioned into nonprofit programs where she was part of starting up a school in Uganda. She was part of starting up something called Parley House. I'll explain that in a minute. And all while she was working as a single mom of two, and at the same time battling cancer. It's a phenomenal life journey that she's had. Now she's the chief strategy officer for a company called Lantern. It's a San Francisco-based

startup that brings mental health and wellness programs to underserved populations, either due to the stigma of mental health, don't get me started there, or because there's an access because of cost or whatever reasons. She's also started something called the Parlay House, and it's a women's gathering of about 800 women where they get together to connect, to learn, and to grow. And it's a phenomenal community, as she explains in this conversation. So I wanted to connect with Anne to better understand how she's been able to do so much in her life, not just in one arena, but so many arenas. As a single mom parenting, running a business in a male-dominated industry, blazing trails in Uganda, battling cancer, all of that is just a phenomenal

effort. And she's been able to do it in a world-class way. So what I hope will take place is that we'll be reminded from this conversation on how important authenticity is, how important relationships are, and how important it is to take risks, to take shots, to do the hard work. And so with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Anne Devereaux-Mills. Anne, how are you doing? I'm great. How are you? I'm doing great.

So here we are. I'm looking forward to this conversation to understand a point of view that I could never organically have. And you have captured something that's really important. You've obviously been successful, but I want to understand more so what success is to you. And more than that, I want to understand the process because you have done something on a world stage and you've gone through some ups and downs in your life that have been incredible, that one alone can break people. And I want to understand how that you've excelled on the world stage and you have just really chipped in to become your very best. And so without like any real agenda other than that, I just want to learn. And I'm honored to

have this conversation with you. Thank you. Yeah, it's a to learn. And I'm honored to have this conversation with you. Thank you. Uh, yeah, it's a, it's a broad question and I think, you know, I would answer it differently at all different stages in my life. Um, so being successful in a world stage means a public self, but I think you can't have a public self until you have a pretty good sense of who your own authentic private self is and what your own values are. So my big summary, 30,000 foot summary of how I was successful on a world stage, despite a lot of, as you said, hindrances, was to know who I am and what I want to be and hold true to that regardless. Okay. So let's go back. Let's go way back. Let's go back to when you first started to notice that you thought differently or you first started to notice that you were hungry for something very specific. And that's my way of trying to think about when did you first notice

that you were on the path of mastery? So when I graduated from college, majoring in political economy, it wasn't as bad as the recession of 2009, but it was a pretty bad economic time, 1984. And getting a job at all was tough, let alone getting a job in something that you're interested in. And I had this political economy major from Wellesley, and I was ready to conquer the world. And the only job I could find at the time was to work for an insurance company. And if you think of an insurance company in 1984, I was working for Marshall McLennan, one of the biggest insurance brokers. And that's because I had written my thesis on political risk and third world development. And here I am going from Seattle protected, beautiful environment to Wellesley protected, beautiful environment to New York City in the

early 80s, which was intense and dangerous and unlike anything that I'd ever experienced. And I had to walk into an all-male environment dealing with a topic of insurance, which really didn't interest me. What a picture. So that's a migration that is, it's like almost going to a new planet probably. It was like a new planet. I remember driving the U-Haul through Harlem, which was way more dangerous at the time than it is now with kind of our hands on the doors and, you know, wide-eyed looks from my parents than me as they dropped me off at my apartment. And, you know, I went to work and really, really, really quickly realized that the job and the colleagues and the

atmosphere was not a good fit to who I was inherently. Okay. And, and so how did you know that? Yeah. How did you know? First of all, I was the only female and there was so much sexual harassment. It was crazy. The second was, I just wasn't interested in insurance. It didn't fit my sweet spot. It wasn't, um, it wasn't how I think. And so, um, you know, I, I had a realization, you know, a, I had to keep my job for a while, so I worked really hard to just keep my job. But as I figured out what the real work world was like, I could pull out bits and pieces from that of what I was naturally good at.

So I knew I liked the client service part. I knew I liked the global part. I knew I liked the creation of communications part, but I didn't like insurance. And so as young people do one job evolved to another. And as my career slowly evolved to corporate communications, which I liked, but I didn't feel the, um, breadth of people that I reached was there. And then I translated that into working for an ad agency that was the ad agency that partnered with my client at the time. And as soon as I got into the advertising world, even though it was an advertising world

focusing on healthcare, and I didn't know anything about healthcare at the time, it started to feel right. I started to notice that the things that I was doing were a direct match to the things that I was interested in, cared about, and good at. And that's when the mastery began. So I sort of was flat in my progression in insurance and relatively flat, although doing a good job in my corporate communications world. But then when I hit the world of advertising, all of a sudden I was in my sweet spot. And so then my career sort of took off and I learned from great mentors and grasped the business well and was able to bridge that chasm between brilliant creative thinkers and bottom line driven clients because we had to come up with great communications that really worked. And I sort of found myself

liking being in the middle of those two spaces. And so, you know, I just started to get in the groove and I got promoted and promoted and promoted. And then the opportunity to start doing television advertising for healthcare products became something that was legally possible. And so I helped start one of the first advertising agencies to do that. And that was the beginning of five different stints as president or CEO of different advertising agencies specializing in healthcare. And I did it for about 25 years. Okay. Wow. That's a lot. And I want to pull back. I want to understand how you were able to get to a world-leading university. I want to understand how you were able to break apart that it wasn't just in the industry that was not good for you, but there was parts in the industry that you were attracted to. And then I want to understand kind of, it was there some sort of aha moment, if you will, where it's like, whoa, when you got into a new environment, you're like,

hey, there's some things here that really make sense to me. So I'd take either any one of those three. And then after we go there, I want to go even further back to like where you grew up, and what that early structure was like for you. Well, so let's do it chronologically, because that's the easiest. So I grew up in Seattle, which Seattle, you know, I was born in the 60s. And Seattle was not the booming, sophisticated city that it is now. But it was, you know, it was kind of early in the Seattle days. And I was lucky enough to go to a private high school that was very intense. And I was a good student, but I wasn't a stellar student.

You know, I would say I was a solid B plus, A minus student. And this was Lakeside, which produced people like Bill Gates. And so I was going to school with people who, on all different fronts, were about to go change the world. Robert Fulgham, who wrote Everything I Ever Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, was our English teacher. And, you know, just the influences and the competition were huge. And, you know, when you're in that environment, and it's a very small school, there are 70 kids in each class, you know, you sort of create this sense of where do you fall? What's your place?

Well, I was not top of the class. I wasn't bottom of the class, but I was like a good, solid performer. And I played sports, but not as a starter, but always played sports. And I was kind of the pretty girl. And I was very boy crazy. And I'm telling you this only because the fact that I ended up at Wellesley was not a choice, but probably one of the better things that happened to me because I was very distracted with boys. And when I got to Wellesley, that wasn't a

possibility, at least not much. And so it allowed me to focus on a different piece of myself, which was my actual ability. And, you know, I thought of myself, I guess, as kind of a confident person, but not completely. And at Wellesley, I just became a leader naturally. I don't know how, but I'm like that today. You know, after getting through freshman year, which is always a tough adjustment, I just sort of became the kind of person who could walk into a room with confidence and own it. And I ended up being president of the senior class. And it's just something that I am. And my parents were super interesting parents because they had this philosophy that if you think you said, no, we trust you to make good decisions. They trusted me so much that when I got my driver's license at the age of 16, they let me drive to Canada in the family car with my 14 and eight-year-old sisters in the car for the weekend by ourselves. Do you think you can do it? Go do it. And so I became incredibly

self-sufficient. And I've been that way, you know, ever since. And whether, whether I didn't choose to parent that way, and maybe I over indexed in helping my kids, because I felt my parents just kind of let me go out there and do so much unassisted, or seem it seemed to me to be unassisted. That, you know, I grew grew to be a very confident person. And Wellesley just, um, you know, Wellesley has, uh, luckily launched the careers of a lot of amazing, strong women like Madeline Albright, who, um, was there near my mom's time. My mom was at Wellesley too. And, uh, Hillary Clinton and many, many other women who gained confidence from their relationships with other women. And to me, it was something I would never have expected or chosen. I wanted to go to Yale.

I didn't get into Yale. And Wellesley accepted me. And I just sort of said, it's a beautiful campus and didn't do my mom any harm. And there I went. But it was an awesome experience. Wow. And what was it like being a youngster, whether it's junior high or high school for you? I know you said school was intense.

Well, it was stressful. Was it the right amount of stress? I raised two daughters and saw them go through similar scrutiny, bullying, judgment. Many of the kids I went to school with were far wealthier than I was. And I'd go skiing at Snoqualmie Pass for the weekend and they'd go to Zermatt. And trying to figure out your place in the world when your brain is not fully developed and your skills are not fully developed is hard. And I remember it being an incredibly emotional, difficult time. And then, so figuring out your place in the world,

was that a thought growing up? Like, where do I have it? Or was that something looking back on? That's definitely looking back. But figuring out my place in my class and in my school was certainly the part. Yeah, like, did know, have that awareness for being a girly girl, you know, Seattle's a grungy place, even now, it's probably rated one of the worst dressed cities in the world. And I'm someone who loves fashion and creativity. So there were a

lot of things that were not fitting in, you know, being Jewish at that time, in Seattle, there weren't as many Jews as there are now. And, you. And I couldn't be part of the debutante scene, which half of me wanted to and half of me didn't. And couldn't belong to certain clubs at that time because they weren't open to Jews. And it's funny to hear someone who I feel that I'm just barely in the middle of life that experienced those things of being on the outside. What was it about your youth that set up a way for you to be able to capture the opportunity to become a CEO of an international firm and to deal with single motherhood and to kick cancer's ass? And like, how did, what was it about your younger years that allowed you to thrive in very challenging environments? I think part of it was the hands-off parenting style of my folks that if something went wrong, I needed to pick myself up and fix it. Part of it is that I am an incredibly persistent person.

I mean, if you were my therapist and you said, why did you stay in a really destructive, abusive marriage for such a long time? It's because I refuse to fail. And there are different reasons that I'm successful on different fronts. So advertising, it was, you know, my pretty good intuition, ability to read and communicate with audiences, my ability to be incredibly even keel when other people are being emotional. And what I said when we started talking, which was the inherent fit between what I'm good at and what I'm interested in aligning with the job that I had to do. With cancer, it was completely different. With cancer, it was playing a complete mental game with myself. First of all, as a

single mom, I couldn't die. It just was not a possibility because my kids did not have a second parent to fall back on or to pick up the pieces if I wasn't there. But at the same time, if I thought of myself, if I defined myself as a cancer patient, that became way too scary, loomed way too large, and took up way too much of my self-identity. So every time I would go in for my treatments or my surgeries or whatever, I always sort of said, you know, I'm just, to myself, this is not out loud, this is just to myself. And I always went by myself and I handled it myself because doing it myself, I could minimize how serious it was in my own head. So it's a complete mental coping game of putting it in a box, minimizing how serious it really was, just consider it living by the day and saying, okay, that's over.

And now I've moved on. And I don't think about myself as a cancer patient on a day-to-day basis, even though it isn't five years yet that I haven't had a recurrence. Okay. So let me see if I can play that back. It's phenomenal. And I'm nodding my head to the idea that this, let me see if I got this right, that what you did is that you didn't expand or exaggerate the stress that could come with this. You said, okay, well, I'm going to deal with this. And I also had to, cause I didn't want to scare my kids. How old were they? Well, I've had cancer on and off for 12 years. So, you know, they were young at the beginning

cause they're now 23 and 25. So it was the, what I had my first, you know, I've had two forms of cancer. I've had skin cancers, melanomas, and I've had female cancers. So I had a hysterectomy right when I was going through the divorce with their dad. And they were 8 and 10-ish. Do you remember the moment in time when you were going to tell them? No, because I never really called it cancer at the time because that was too scary. You know, I talked about, yeah, how did you share that? Oh, I've got some weird cells in my body that aren't behaving normally.

And so they're just going to take those out. And, you know, I'm incredibly resilient. So the day I got home from the hospital, I went for a two or three mile walk so they could see that I wasn't, I wasn't super sick. I didn't let myself seem super sick. At the moment when you were tired and you were stressed and you didn't have somebody to turn to, and maybe I'm making this too big of a picture, but I want to know how you dealt with those moments that were dark or scary or stressful. How did you do that?

I think I denied their existence. Is that healthy or? No, probably not healthy. Although it was at the time, you know, looking, looking back, it, it wasn't like I held it in, held it in, held it in. And then one day had a breakdown or exploded. I didn't, it just sort of faded away and melted away. So, you know, would it have been nice to have a support system? Yes. Although I fear that by, by opening up to all of the, the potential downsides of having cancer might've not let me play the game that I talked about playing, which is putting it in a box and minimizing it and just focusing on the other parts of life that brought me joy and were,

were in my control. I think there's a big difference here when you talk about how you handle being a single mom, which is a choice, or how you handle your career, which is a choice, and how you handle cancer, which is not a choice. There you go. Okay. And so it wasn't a choice. I just put it in a box and said, this isn't my fault, nor is it under my control. Therefore, I'm going to do what the doctors tell me and close the box back up. and to put your head down and almost to take care of other people, but in some way, by not freaking them out or scaring them, but in some way it was like a containment, if you will.

It was. So what would you do when your mom would ask you? Like, how are you doing, honey? Or whatever that phrase is that she would say. I would say I'm doing pretty well. I found the intense scrutiny on how I'm doing by other people was forcing me to open the box that I didn't want to open. So I would be, I think I would very often respond with reassurance and then change the subject.

Was that for them or for you? It sounds like it was for you. Definitely for me. And would that create separation between the two of you? It sounds like it was for you. Definitely for me. And would that create separation between the two of you or? No, because our relationship was always me being exceptionally independent. And so, you know, they didn't, they didn't come out. I'm sure they offered, although I don't really recall ever taking it seriously. I raised my kids in the East Coast. My parents lived in Seattle. So, um, you know, it wasn't like they were down the street and could come over and bring dinner and see how, see how I was doing. So if they, if I was going to have them in, I E fly out and be with me, all of a sudden it turned

it into a very big, real thing that I couldn't handle myself. And that just wasn't acceptable to me. And so, so that's, you know, I chose to handle it all myself. Do you think that that is unique or different? I think it's unique. Yeah, I think so. And I don't regret it. I mean, now I'm married to someone who is a real partner. And when I had my last sort of most significant recurrence in 2009, and I've had some smaller things since then, he was with me every step of the way and he communicated to my kids and my family. And that

was really helpful because I could still sort of minimize it. But I did have someone who was updating the people who cared and could be in the hospital with me. And while I didn't always like it when he said, I am going with you to your appointments, it was probably a good thing. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits,

or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus Standard. Every product is formulated with top experts and every batch is third-party tested. NSF certified for sport or informed sport. So you know exactly what you're getting. Personally, I'm anchored by

what they call the Momentus 3, protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term and together these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery brain function and long-term energy they're part of my daily routine and if you're ready to fuel your brain and body with the best momentous has a great new offer just for our community right here use the code finding mastery for 35 off your first subscription order at livemomentous.com. Again, that's L-I-V-E, momentous, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, livemomentous.com, and use the code Finding Mastery for 35% off your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Gray. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can create the

conditions for high performance. How do we protect our ability to focus, to recover, to be present? And one of the biggest challenges we face today is our sheer amount of screen time. It messes with our sleep, our clarity, even our mood. And that's why I've been using Felix Gray glasses. What I appreciate most about Felix Gray is that they're just not another wellness product. They're rooted in real science. Developed alongside leading researchers and ophthalmologists, they've demonstrated these types of glasses boost melatonin, help you fall asleep faster, and hit deeper stages of rest. When I'm on the road and bouncing around between time zones, slipping on my Felix Grays in the evening, it's a simple way to cue my body just to wind down.

And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners

20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. And when you were going through that, the beginnings of that, the containment model, if you will, to not, you know, over-exaggerate or even exaggerate at all any of the symptoms and fears that you would have, what were you doing at work? Were you building?

Were you running? Oh, I was, you know, this is really funny. I talked to someone recently who's writing a book on resilience and wanted to include me in a chapter. And the reason she found me is because she was friends with someone who was my administrative assistant as her first job straight out of college. And then this was a hugely intelligent, capable woman who then rose up the ladder and became successful and a leader in her own right. But when she was telling this woman about me and my story and why this woman should talk to me, she played back to me my life over 20 years from her point of view as an observer. And there were times when she would feel bad that either

her relationship didn't work out or her boyfriend and she were fighting and someone would say, look at Ann, she's a single mom, she's got cancer, she's running this company. Do you see her walking around moping, feeling sorry for herself? And she could play back how she viewed me 20 years later. I never realized anyone was paying attention to how I was handling things and how I was coping. And it's really funny because I'm an incredibly empathetic person who spends most of her time helping others. And yet I was not letting anyone help me. And I was being super intense about just focusing on other aspects of my life instead of dealing with those emotional volatilities. And so, you

know, I guess I can, I can dish out the empathy, empathy, but I can't take it would be the, the, the reasonable description of me. Yeah. Is that a, well, it's not a good thing probably, but it's just, well, I don't know that it's a bad thing either. It's just who I am. Yeah. I, and I don't, I have, um, I don't see things with judgment, like good, bad. And like, it's, it was sounds like it was a, I'll use the word though, a decision, a good decision for you to have that approach. And I'm wondering if, and I just a curiosity about this, was it vulnerability that was hard? Or was it really a containment process? It was containment. It was containment. Okay. And then, so with all, with, I love how you deal, um, created a separation between that, which is in your control and those that are not.

And did you choose the relationship that eventually ended? I know you chose, you listened to your words. It's a fantastic story. Um, you know, having been at Wellesley for four years, and then showing up at Marsh and McLennan, you know, one June day in 1984, I had no real idea of the risk of the city or anything else. But you know, I decided, okay, here I am, I'm an independent adult, I'm a New Yorker. And my boss who didn't really have plans for me, good plans for me that day, I went to work and he sort of said, you know, I hadn't really thought about what you were going to do today. Why don't

you go home early, get your apartment moved in and come back tomorrow and I'll have it figured out. And I was kind of bummed because I was ready to go. You know, I had been studying, I was ready to launch into the world, but I said, okay, fine. I was living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I'm going to walk up through Central Park and walk home through the park. Not the safest thing to do at that time as a single woman. But I get halfway through the park and standing under a tree is a tall, handsome man holding the village voice under his arm and had a thick accent. And I immediately summed up the situation, gay English actor. So in my brain was, he's going to be safe because he's gay. He's going to be funny. And, you know, he turns out was not gay, not an actor and not English. He was Irish. He had just gotten off the plane and had picked

up a newspaper. He didn't realize the village Voice was the gay newspaper at the time. And he was looking for a job. And charming as all get out, asked me to help him get out of Central Park where at six foot four, 280 pounds, he was lost. And so I knew how to get out of Central Park. And so I showed him how to get out of Central Park. And then he asked me out for a drink. And I was not stupid enough to just randomly go out for a drink with someone I'd met in Central Park at 21 years old. But I did know a bar where one of my fellow classmates was working. And I figured if this guy is really dangerous, at least someone there will know me. And I can get help. So we went out for a drink. And I hadn't ever dated anyone as an adult before. And let's, you know And we're pretending now that 21 is an adult.

But I ended up, that was the only person I dated, and it ended up being the person that I married. So it's kind of this random Jewish girl from Seattle in Wellesley, you know, runs into a charismatic, charming Catholic Irishman in Central Park. And then how did you know that the relationship was done? What was it about the ending that you were able to pull the trigger or make it work? Oh, well, it was many years of abuse and incredible torrential emotions. He was a very intense and volatile human being. And I didn't know anything really different. You know, I didn't have other experiences to compare it to. And so I had been unhappy and just trying to control the situation and protect my kids and keep things calm for many,

many years. And then I had kind of this series of events where I became a fellow at the Aspen Institute, which was a great honor and gave me a chance to be in a class that was about values based leadership with 19 other highly successful people from all walks of life. And I remember sitting in that classroom and thinking, wow, I feel more comfortable with these 19 new friends, semi strangers than I do being at home in my own house. And at about the time that I had that realization, I was home with my daughter and my husband at the time was traveling. And she was young. She was probably, this is my older daughter, she was probably seven or eight. And she said,

mom, isn't it wonderful? We're sitting here, we're reading a book, it's quiet and we're not worried whether dad's going to come bursting in and start yelling about anything. And we're not scared about what he's going to say. And he's not talking about rugby all the time. And she just was essentially expressing in her very naive young self a lot of the things that I hadn't even acknowledged to myself that I felt. And so it was a big wake-up call that other people that I was protecting were suffering as much as I was. So it was those two things that caused me to say, okay, I can't, you know, cause we had, I had talked with him about it in very, very careful tones because he was a huge, really volatile person about being unhappy before, but you know, I had to so dance around it. And so finally just that, that knowing that my daughter was equally terrified, sorry. Um, um, so that, that, you know, that was the sign to me. That was the moment that it was that it, sorry, that was the moment that I knew that it wasn't just me that

was suffering and that I had to make a, a move. Okay. Got it. Okay. All, I mean, it's, it's like really intense, you know know like the way that you you're the beginning part of your career uh took off and or not your career but your life and your career so it seems really intense are is that a is that an accurate descriptor or it feels like um that you are an intense person i mean i i am an intense person yeah Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. How do you see the world? Like, what is the way that you understand how the world works?

You know, it's a hard question to answer because in general, I always see what I like in people and I choose not to see or focus on what I don't like until it just becomes something that I absolutely can't ignore. You know, my philosophy tends to be about people and about opportunities and about career and about challenges. Just keep saying yes till it's so clear that you have to say no. And, um, so, you know, I, I guess that's how I've always, I guess that's the best way to summarize how I've always behaved and seen the world. And I, and I continue to be that way to this day. Now my, my life is very different and, and it has changed dramatically because, um, the final moment was, uh, about five years ago when my cancer reoccurred. I was standing in Uganda. I

helped start a school for orphan kids in Uganda. And I was standing there with my older daughter who had been teaching for the summer and I'd gone to visit for a couple of weeks. And, you know, as I always do, I'd been to Kettering and had my checkups as I always do. And, you know, whenever I go to Kettering, they usually see something weird and they do some small biopsy and I put it out of my head. And the lack of a call or the call from the nurse means everything's fine. We'll see you in another three months. So I got on the plane and I'm with my daughter. And this is the poorest of the poor. These are children who have lost their parents to AIDS and malaria and sleep on

a floor of some distant relative or kind person's home and can't go to school unless they can find a pair of shoes and often go in a pair of shoes that are five sizes too big. They can barely walk in, but that's a requirement. These people are suffering to the point that none of us in this country, I think, can have ever experienced this kind of poverty, hunger, desperation, violence, etc. So my phone rings, and it's my oncologist himself, which is never a good sign. And I'm standing out in the dirt trying to find a signal on my cell phone. And he said, you know, the bad news is your cancer has accelerated and spread. And we're now going to have to remove half of your vagina.

And it's just the only way I can think of containing this, and I've consulted with my other surgeons, and we all agree this is just what we have to do. In that moment, just for a pause, what happens for you when you get the news? Oh, I felt completely nauseous, overwhelmed, tearful, worried, all the things that you would feel when you got that call. Did your containment model, was that working then? Was that still the model? I'm standing out in the dirt by myself, because I was there with my daughter who was already pushing the limits of her own comfort by working in this scary place herself for the summer at, you know, 18 years old. And I didn't want, again, to create increased worry by other people. So I didn't give her the details. You know, I did tell her that I

was going to, when I went home, I was going to have to have some more surgery, but I didn't want to scare her with a lot of details. Luckily by that time I had David, my, my husband, who I could talk, talk to him, talk about and, and could share it. But that was, you know, he wasn't with me in Africa. So I had to, you know, parcel out what I dealt with and when. And so I also at this time, my youngest daughter was about to leave for college. And so I was about to face a major life transition. Anyway, I, you know, I now had cancer and my youngest child, my reason for living, which is live for these children, because they't have anybody else, was shifting grammatically. And so I came back, I decided, okay, I'm going to do what I always do, which is walk back in,

tell my boss that I have this temporary setback, go have the surgery, go back and run the company, and life would go on as it always had been. And when I walked into my boss to tell him about this and there this is shortening a little bit of a longer story he said this is somebody I'd built four companies for over a 20-year period and who'd equated me to his daughter who'd said I love you this was someone who I really trusted and I expected him to say what can we do for you and how do we help get you through this and instead he said okay well don't hate me for this, but we're going to have someone else run the company. And so I lost my identity at that moment. And that was, I think...

What just happened for you right now when you said that? Well, that was an incredibly difficult inflection point in my life because I could deal with the things that it was, it was something that used to be in my control that completely unexpectedly was out of my control. And it was an increasing part of my identity as my role as mother faded and as my ability to box up my health issues was temporarily faded. And it was just sort of a blow at the time when I was already the weakest. Okay. And then just thinking about that right now in this conversation, what happened?

Oh, it makes me sad. Yeah. Okay. And it was identity. It was a betrayal. And it was both. It was someone who I had trusted throwing me under the bus. And I couldn't believe that any human would do that, even in a recession, even, you

know, when they were feeling pressure, I just would never behave that way. So it catches me off guard when people are really awful, because that's not how I see humanity. And it took away my sense of self, it took away my, um, my definition of who I was, which was this incredibly resilient leader who did such a good job that even in times of stress and times of trouble, I was going to, I was going to survive and be chosen to lead. And, you know, I had all sorts of people around the network, uh, the advertising network that I worked in that said, Oh, don't worry. You know, advertising network that I worked in that said, oh, don't worry. Tom would never do anything like that because you're the star. You're the one who

he always brags about and relies on and you're safe and don't worry about it. And then the next thing I knew, I was not safe. And so it was a shocker. I had been growing up. It's kind of like my marriage. I had been growing up in this abusive industry, not realizing it was abusive because it's all I knew, just like not realizing my first marriage was awful because it was the only marriage that I knew. And so I thought all industries were as tough and male-dominated and exclusionary and backstabbing as advertising was. And, you know, I know now, cause I'm no longer in that industry that that isn't true. But at that time it was a huge shocker because it, it, it just revealed behind the curtain, all the things that

I had just been accepting as the way things are, um, being pretty bad. Okay. So we might know some people together. Yeah. This optimistic frame that you go through the world with and then you wrapped your – I see the crisis, right? The optimistic lens you're dealing with a lot, but you created the vision of yourself, your identity around being a resilient leader as opposed to a resilient woman. And as soon as somebody takes away leader, then you're left with resilient what?

So that is a brilliant segue. Because what happened was, I decided, okay, the world is telling me that banging my head in the same direction over and over. I could have just, you know, had the surgery, found a job leading a different advertising agency for a different network and gone forward in the same way. But I saw that as a moment where the world was saying to me, this is time for a major life shift. You're no longer going to be comfortable in the suburbs with no kids at home. Your boyfriend at the time is living in California while you're in New York. You know, the industry has revealed itself to be pretty dreadful. And, you know, you don't know how long your life will last. So you might as well find some ways to enjoy it. And so I just

sort of took a flying leap, which is very uncharacteristic for me, and moved out to California without a plan, you know, to be with David for sure, but without a plan of what I would do. And so I found myself very fortunate in that he's a successful guy, and I had been successful myself. And I'm standing on the rooftop of the home we renovated together, looking out with Marin in front of me and the Golden Gate Bridge to my left and the Bay Bridge to my right and Alcatraz in front of me. And it's a glorious sunny day. And I'm standing on my roof and thinking, God, why isn't someone here to hang out with me? Why don't I have a friend? I did not know one person that was a good friend that could come over and share

anything with me. So that was kind of my second half of my wake-up call when my past self was pulled away from me was that I had to go back and say, okay, if I could start life all over again, if I can recreate a new reality, what is it? And nobody, I don't know anybody who ever gets lucky enough to do that or who has to face something scary enough to have almost everything pulled out from under you at once. But there I was by myself on my roof looking out and saying, what do I want to be? How old were you? This was five years ago. Okay. That's 50. Okay. 49. Okay. All right. So this is like reinventing in the middle, the middle years. Yeah. You know, I don't, I don't know many people who do all of those things at once, but I thought back to, I was one of three

sisters. I had two daughters. I went to Wellesley and I realized that, um, the female connections, which are, you know, can be very intimate and less judgmental and supportive. I hadn't had in the advertising world for sure. And so, you know, I, I decided that was something I was going to strive for, which was some deep and meaningful connections and relationships with other women. Um, you know, cause I had my, my boyfriend who is now my husband, but you know, he had, has a million big jobs and, uh, two children of his own that he was still raising part-time with his ex-wife. And, um, you know, I couldn't be completely reliant on him. So I just thought, okay, what do I want? And I created a gathering of women, which is all I can call it, based on asking friends of friends who

they knew in the area who might want to get to know more people. And I started hosting based on the Aspen Institute model, which was content-based gatherings so that I could meet some new people. And this was self-serving to end my own feeling of isolation and loneliness. How do I make some friends and how do I make friends that are meaningful? And how does, because I'm not a superficial lady who lunches gossipy, I, you know, I just, that's not who I am. I wanted things that were substantive. And so people started coming to my house and I would have a writer come and talk about her new book, or I would have documentary filmmakers that I

met based on some work my husband and I were doing in the social justice arena talk about being filmmakers working in the prison system as women. And as we started to have these events, people said, Oh, I have a friend who'd like to come. Can I bring someone else? And it created this cascade of each woman pulling another woman or another few women forward into our growing circle without a plan. This wasn't what we intended. This was just my need, which was to end my isolation, create some meaningful connections to do it based based on content because I'm inherently a shy person, even though my job and my life has required me to become what seems to be an extrovert. I think I'm actually someone who holds my cards pretty close to my chest and I don't

make a lot of friends easily. And the things that I was feeling were the things that all these other women were feeling. And so then it became a real organization and we actually named it and we actually thought about our values, which was to be inclusive and as diverse as possible. And it became a living, breathing organism that now has 800 members and, you know, growing daily and crossing wide ranges of topics from super serious, like surviving genocide in a country and going on to become a leader or, um, you know, the experience of growing up as a girl under the Taliban or, um, you know, some very meaningful poets or people who have started businesses that are providing social good.

Or we do an annual book exchange where you bring a book that's been meaningful to you and you talk to other people. And at the end of the night, you sort of take home the book of the woman you bonded with so that then you can carry on the conversation. And, you know, the, the funny, funny enough that the best selling, uh, best sold, most quickly sold out events that we've had, cause we charged $20 for an event where we serve champagne and food and whatever, because when people have skin in the game, they tend to show up. The one that gets, that has so many people, we can never accommodate everyone is the topic of narcissism. And there's this amazing friend, I would call her a friend, but she's also a psychologist and the national expert on narcissism.

And she's come to talk about how you deal with narcissists in your life. And I can't even tell you how big of a topic that has been. But, you know, because we hit on mindfulness. What is her name? Her name is Dr. Wendy Bahari. She's based in New Jersey, but she travels around the world teaching cognitive therapy, but especially with a focus on helping people deal with narcissists in their lives. And, you know, it's just been great.

I'd love to meet her. I could introduce you. She's just phenomenal. Finding Mastery her i could introduce you she's just phenomenal finding master is brought to you by cozy earth over the years i've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep it starts with how we transition and wind down and that's why i've built intentional routines into the way that i close my day and cozy earth has become a new part of that their bedding it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most

is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine.

Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you, that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating.

If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab. I believe that the way we do small things in life is how we do all things. And for me, that includes how I take care of my body.

I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence,

the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Okay, hold on, hold on. I want to get some structure first. I understand why you set this up. It was to fill a need and a desire that you had to be connected. And it feels like that containment model had run out. And I think that our greatest strategies become double-edged swords at some point,

when our greatest in anything, when our, when we over index on our craft or a particular part of our mindset, at that time to be more vulnerable, no longer protecting my kids who were off in college or out in the real world. It's awesome. I had support of my husband and I hadn't had those two things before. So I'm not so sure that I felt that my best secret became my biggest hindrance. I didn't see it that way. I just felt I had transitioned into a next stage of life where I had the support and freedoms to create meaningful relationships and be vulnerable. And, you know, I couldn't in my career in advertising reveal vulnerabilities, but what I've found with Parley house, which is this organization I started the, the gatherings that people most like to come to are the ones where we share our fears and

weaknesses and mistakes. And because it makes everyone feel so much more normal because they feel those things too. So the isolation that I felt was something everyone could connect to. And then when we have our life stories gatherings where people talk about their life stories that are always completely fascinating, people divulge a lot because they feel safe and they can trust the dialogue that's happening in this group that's in my home with other women, you know, all of whom want to be supportive and identify and no one's going to go out and say, wow, did you hear that so-and-so, you know, went through this struggle? They're actually impressed by so-and-so's willingness to talk about how hard those

things were or how it shaped her life. And the meetings for Parley House are always in your home? And they're like once a month? Almost all. Once a month. They're almost always in my home unless the event is so popular or the content requires a different space. So we have a dance event coming up that will be held in an art gallery. We also, I collect a lot of art in my house.

It's kind of busy. And so when we did a meditation, um, mindfulness session, we did that also at a sparsely populated, um, gallery space. So we'll change venues and the narcissism event. So many people wanted to come. I had to move it to a restaurant because I couldn't not let people benefit from hearing about that. How long have you been training mindfulness? You know, one of the things, the other things that I did when I moved to California was started working at Stanford in the psych department through a series of connections that I had. And there were some amazing psychiatrists there who had figured out how to translate cognitive behavioral therapy into online technology.

And they were specifically focused on the prevention of eating disorders at the Stanford campus and on college campuses because it's so rampant. But they recognized that what they had created was still very clunky in function and academic in language. And because I'm a commercialization and language a conscious and intentional way every day, but I sort of have incorporated it into, into life, into how I deal with, with life have, because of that, um, that introduction and connection. So I didn't really study it. I more learned it through, um, helping these people with their business model. And then that blossomed into a startup where I'm the chief strategy officer, which is a company called Lantern. You can see it at golantern.com. And what we do is bring cognitive behavioral therapy to people through mobile technology.

So it's now evolved so that it's not just a clunky computer program, it actually, um, analyzes and you, and helps you then create a program that includes mindfulness to deal with, um, anxiety and stress. And, you know, you get a, you get assigned to a licensed mental health professional who's your coach and you, uh, talk with her on the phone in the beginning. And then you end up having a, uh, a text, uh, really a a relationship by text as you go through programs, if you're writing into problems or if she sees patterns or if there's any red alert signs where she can intervene. But it's a way to dramatically expand people's access to therapeutic help and getting beyond sort of the stigma or accessibility or cost issues that are often plagued with, that people are plagued by who, you know, who don't have the money or the

resources or live in a place where they can get help. So that's been super fun for me. And again, playing to a strength and playing to something I care about. It's amazing because it seems as though the impact that you've had on so many others has come from your understanding and your insight within. And that was kind of how we started this conversation. And it feels as though that I don't want to make this assumption, but it feels as though you've had help. And I don't know what that help is, whether it was your family structure or you, it sounds like maybe mindfulness, but maybe it was therapy. Like somehow you've got a rich understanding of how you worked and how the events in your life string together and how you've taken your skills of both inter-awareness or inner awareness, as well as your ability to

see and think big, which came from the ad agency skill set that you would have to have. And now you've got this lens of wanting to do good for the world. Does that seem accurate? It is accurate. Although I'm not so sure I can tell you exactly how it has happened. I've been in yeah, I've been in therapy off and on. Um, for the last 10 years, I haven't really had someone who I felt I had major ahas. It certainly related to my divorce. I did. And, um, but I haven't really about my cancer or other things. I think those things have happened more organically, but you know, I do have a daughter who is, she was a psych major, and she's going to grad school in psychology, she's incredibly intuitive, and aware

of her own feelings and of mine. And I remember even when, when she was like a little girl, we'd go to parties in our town of Summit, New Jersey, where as a single mom at that time, I was kind of an unusual person because it was a relatively conservative town. A lot of couples who stayed married, being a single, especially a single CEO, working mom, that's kind of an outcast. And we would go to events and I would try to be fitting in and we would go home and she would say, mom, when so-and-so said that to you, didn't that make you feel really bad? And I had not even let myself feel really bad or be aware that it felt really bad. But I had this little kid who was incredibly intuitive, who could tell me how I was feeling. And I was like, yeah, actually it really did. I hadn't even thought about it. Thank you for pointing that out and helping me.

And so, you know, it might even be that I have these coaches that I don't realize are coaches in my children and in some of the people I'm protecting that I'm actually learning from. Okay, so let me see if we could maybe create a little bit of tension around a concept, which is if you had the chance, which I know you do often, but for right now to capture the question, if you had a chance to ask one question to somebody who's a master of craft, what would that question be? When did you realize you were at the intersection of who you are and what you value okay i love i mean seriously you're you're a deep thinker and so can you answer that question for you and let me make sure i got it right when did you realize say it again when did you realize that you're at the intersection of who you are and what you value and what you do well?

You know, I think I've had some, you know, business influences that are profound. There was a book that was a bestseller maybe 20 years ago, which is called Strengths Finder. And essentially it changed my mindset. It used to be when I'd get my report card and I would ignore the good grades and just focus on the place that I was struggling, which was usually in the math arena. And I'd sort of beat myself up about that and feel badly and think, how am I going to bring that up to a good grade? And this book was really about you're most successful when you take the things that you naturally do well and build on them and put yourself in places where those things are what's in the forefront and don't spend so much time thinking about the things that are harder for that expanded to an emotional level as well. So both in terms of what you do and in terms of how you feel and how you interact with people, are you at the intersection

of what you love and what comes naturally and where you can be of help? And so while I applied it in the business world and I applied it in parenting, I'm now applying it in the social good space. So I spend lots of time mentoring and leading nonprofit efforts and especially focusing on helping support the growth and development of women. And my husband and I are very active in prison reform and in reintegrating people back into society who weren't as lucky as I was in how they started off life. And so, you know, are you at the intersection of what you care about, what you do well,

and what you value? And if you are, that's when you become a master of craft. And so let's deconstruct that really quickly. What are the things that you value most? And then what is it that you do best? What I value most is small acts of real meaningful kindness, empathy, generosity, goodness that can create a cascade effect far beyond the person who was impacted. And the thing that I do best is listen and feel of what the person near me is saying and feeling.

And if I can hear and feel and understand them, then it's most likely that I'm going to be able to pass on some of that generosity, empathy, kindness, goodness in a way that's really meaningful. Because you value it. Right. And so how do you become a good listener? What are the ways that you've refined that skill? You know, again, I think it came from my youngest daughter

who has struggled with issues in her life, and I'm always the solver, the fixer, the, you know, okay, we have a problem. It's, you know, I'm not necessarily going to, you know, take time delving into how you feel and why, but let's fix it. And she would say to me, mom, I don't want you to fix it. I just want you to listen. I want you to tell me that you understand how bad that must feel. And I want you to tell me that you're here for me and I'll figure out the rest. And so she really taught me and she taught, she taught me that in high school, she would get exasperated with me trying to help her fix the things that were upsetting her rather than just, um, listening, empathizing and understanding. Okay. So are you looking to go deep with few or have impact on many? I love that question. So early in my life,

I, as a human being was incredibly narrow and deep. Because if you're running a company, if you're raising kids on your own, there is not time for anything else. And then when I moved here, and I didn't have either of those responsibilities on a heavy duty,-to-day basis, because my kids were in college or passed and I was not running a company, I went very broad, multiple boards, multiple mentoring, multiple volunteering opportunities, but not very deep because I was not in charge of anything. You can show up at a board meeting four times a year and give your best input, but they have to go off and run the company afterwards. And I found that incredible difference between the narrow depth and the shallow breadth to be incredibly hard. And so, you know, even now, as I'm into my fifth year of shaping this next life chapter,

I'm still trying to, um, gather in the edges that have not spread so thin and go deeper with the things that are important and meaningful to me. So, you know, even when I'm asked to give money to people, because I get asked to give money a lot, I've had to be really focused on what do I care about most? Because there's so many things I care about, like how many, how many great people are out there trying to make change and start nonprofits and how do you choose? And you have to kind of force yourself to, um, listen to that, um, that piece inside you that says, you know, if I'm going to stand for something in this world, what do I want to stand for? And so I've been very specific that I want to stand for the

empowerment of women and breaking down inequality and especially focusing on social justice. And so, you know, while I care a lot about the environment or other good causes, I tend to be able to shape my behaviors and my giving and my personal time to those specific things because I've thought a lot about it. And was it thinking? Was it writing? Was it? All of the above. And also experiencing because when I experienced the energy and the true joy that came seeing

30 or 50 women gathered in my home and you can hear it. Happiness is audible. It's not just an internal expression. You can actually feel when people in the room are jazzed and feeling empowered and connected and excited by something, you can hear it. And I remember just being amazed that what to me was a way to meet people had turned into this much more powerful, audible thing. And then other insights happened. So I'd be in a room and as the hostess, it's a little hard for me. It actually was counterproductive for me in terms of building friendships to be playing this role because I, um, I ended up having too many superficial conversations because I want to make sure everybody else was connecting and happy. Um, but I would see in a room, someone who, two people who I'd had, um, conversations with where I knew enough about them

to know that they were, you know, a little bit, but not a lot. But I would say, you know, Liz, I think Margaret over there and you have a lot in common. I'm having a hard time remembering exactly why, but I really think you guys would like each other. And I would just say that to them or say it as they were standing next to each other. And by the end of the night, they would walk out the door practically arm in arm and say, you were so right. You would not believe the number of things that we have in common. And this is just amazing. And we're getting together next week for lunch. Now, I think it was the power of suggestion that there are commonalities and similarities in us that if we can find them more often in life with other people,

we'll stop looking at the differences. Go ahead. Oh, sorry. Do you think that you have a second career in tarot cards? I don't know. I mean, and I don't mean that in like the real reading of it, but like saying something very general and giving something, and then people internalize it and then,

you know, try to make it real. I think it's this incredible insight about our opportunity as human beings at this time of great disconnection. When you look at what happened with Brexit, when you look at what's happening in our current political race in this country and all of the people who feel alienated and disconnected. And if we can shift the focus on both small acts that each of us is capable of doing, regardless of what our careers are, or our wealth is, or our, you know, education is, combined with the assumption that we have much more in common than we have in differences, that we can make incredible impacts on the world. Okay. With that, if we shift back to you here,

is there a word that guides your life or a phrase that guides your life? Small acts is what's guiding my life right now. Small actions that create a cascade far beyond the action. Yeah, and you said that earlier. It sounds like that's your guiding philosophy. And if you add that... You know, I learned it from my husband

because he's a very successful guy who's accomplished big things. What does he do? He teaches law at Stanford and he is an investor, does a bunch of different things. But we were working on a ballot initiative here in California to change the unfair sentencing called three strikes, which was punishing, giving people life sentences when their third strike was something tiny like stealing a pair of pants from Sears or writing a bad check. These are people who had two strikes before them. And the law was so severe that if they got convicted of this third offense, even if it was a really stupid thing, they were sentenced to life in prison and their lives were over. And so, you know, there is unfairness on a lot of levels with

this. But as David was taking the lead and writing the ballot initiative and had to make a lot of compromises, he really said, you know, this is only going to affect 3000 of the many, many, many thousands of people that are in prison. it's a small step that if we can get this one thing accomplished where we can achieve much more fairness in how we sentence and assess people's imperfections, it can start a cascade that rolls larger. And we did that. We passed Prop 36 with 70% of the vote throughout California, even in the most conservative states. And it happened not because of the cost savings that were achieved by having fewer people in prison. It was achieved because everyone agreed on this notion of fairness. Everyone saw that this small step towards an increasingly fair process and increasingly fair sentencing was a good thing for all. And Republicans and Democrats across the board agreed on this small change. And the small change has since rolled through other states as well. And Obama himself

has been releasing people who had served extremely long sentences for nonviolent and, you know, relatively small crimes. And so our little change went all the way, not with our doing, but because of the cascade effect that it started to much more significant impact. And when I saw that was true on a political level, I all of a sudden started applying it to a human level and watching what happens when people just do something small, kind, and generous, and how the recipient often then becomes the next person to do something small, kind, and generous, and what a better society we'd be if we did that. Can you give an example of what that would be like? Like something becomes the next person to do something small, kind, and generous. And what a better society we'd be if we did that. Can you give an example of what that would be like? Like something that

I could do or something that my family could do that would be a really concrete action? And maybe anyone that's listening, like a small... I'll tell you one of my personal stories. I am working with an organization called She Can, which takes, it's shaping her education, can change a nation. And it takes high performing young women in post-genocide countries. So they've been through incredible civil wars. It's Afghanistan, Rwanda in camps and separated from their families and seeing family members killed, have somehow managed to have personal resilience to rise up and become good students and want to go on to have higher level academic careers and then, you know, become leaders in their countries. group of women, usually five of us or so, who mentor each of these girls. And we work with them in their last year of high school in their countries to take the standardized tests and to do social service activities, which will look good on a college application, and to get them into full

scholarships in schools in the U.S. and then to mentor them throughout that process. So our two sons are adopted and our youngest son is from Cambodia. And when Cambodia was one of the countries that I could choose to sponsor a girl, I thought, oh, that'd be a neat experience for our son to meet someone from his country as well because there aren't a lot of Cambodians walking around San Francisco, Santa Cruz that we know. So I found this amazing, dynamic young woman. And I mean, she's just you can tell that she just is spunky beyond i'll get out her two older sisters both got pregnant at 16 work and married and work in the family uh business and i use that term lightly which is um selling whatever they can find whether it's foods or goods or whatever at a little market in rural cambodia never having been out of cambodia never having been on a plane.

This girl becomes the number one student in her class, gets a perfect score in the national exam, and is well on her way to coming to college in the US. But one of the things that the top schools require is that you take the TOEFL exam, which is English as a second language. And there aren't very many people in Cambodia who are taking the TOEFL exam. And so it's very poorly administered and proctored and it's kind of chaotic and it's loud and there's stops and starts and they, you know, make mistakes. And so my scholar was getting really anxious and having a super hard time scoring well. And she, you know, got her best score,

which was a 90. And most of the schools require 100 in order to get into the school. And I'm trying to figure out what do, how do I help? What, what thing can I do? What small thing can happen for this girl to get her past this final hurdle. And I remembered someone that I met at Parley House, who is another young woman, she's in her 20s. And what she does for her career is she teaches mindfulness and meditation in inner city schools to help kids who don't have good coping mechanisms deal with anger or stress or whatever. And I thought, maybe she has some something she could say to my scholar, Srelek, to help her. And so I called her.

I said, Hannah, would you mind just making a phone call? I'm happy to pay for the call, in which, of course, Hannah wouldn't let me. And just see if you can give this girl some coping skills so that when she takes her final chance at the TOEFL, she can give it her best shot. So Hannah says, sure, and does. And sure enough, she gets 100 on her score. So it was a tiny act of an unknown stranger, of a stranger to another stranger in actually another country of something that she naturally already did and did well. Hannah does this all the time.

So it wasn't doing something she'd never done. It was just taking one of her strengths and skills and capacities and passing it on to another person. Now, the effect on that other person is her life is transformed. She'll go back to her country as a U.S. college-educated woman with all the potential in the world to take on a major role, whether she decides it's in politics or in business or in health or in whatever, and really make change. And if it hadn't been for the half hour spent by that person, it wouldn't have happened. Jeez. Okay. It's so good. And like, I've been listening. I don't know if I've ever been this quiet in one of these conversations because I'm

just trying to make sense of the enormity of what you've done, the scale of what you're doing it at, and at the same time, the singularity that you're connected to. It's like this really wonderful impact that you've had on the world and others, and you're driving it right down into face-to-face interactions with people and or in the technology, like thoughtful-to-thoughtful or empathy-to-empathy skilled relationships. And it's just rad. It's just – seriously, it's just good.

You know what? And it feels good. And everybody who experiences it and does it gets as much out of it. So it's kind of contagious. It's kind of positive. No, it is. Okay. I mean, you're right on it. And I want to talk about money with you. I think you have money, a lot of money. It's just, I don't know. It doesn't really matter to me, but I feel like you've been rewarded financially for, I mean, running one of the largest ad agencies in the

world. That's a massive job. I know I want to talk to you about that in a minute. How do you think about money? Unless I'm wrong, are you flat broke? No, no, no, no, no. I do very well. But it's not just me, it's my husband. So this is a weird, this is a personal challenge for me because when I was running companies, I did do very well. Did I do as well as men that were at the same level in my industry? Probably not. There probably was a inequity even at the CEO level in the advertising world. But I did well enough to send my kids to college and to live in a nice upper middle class household. And, you know, I did, I did very well. I did, you know, better than most people I know, but not at the ridiculous levels that are California, Silicon Valley and, you know,

hedge funds and other things. So I married someone who happened to have done financially way better than I did. And he'd say career, you know, career for career, we're both doing pretty damn well. But he picked a, an industry where you make more money than in the industry that I was in. But yes, I did. I did well. And money, to me used to be freedom. It was certainly I was the breadwinner in the household, when I had the not-so-wonderful husband. And being the breadwinner gave me autonomy and gave me the ability to say, I'm getting out, and to not worry what was going to happen to me. It made it easier for me to get out when I had my own financial independence. Now, it is something that I question because I'm not the major breadwinner in the household. And that's a really hard thing for me. While I know I'm doing meaningful things on a day-to-day basis,

it's one measure where I'm not pulling my own weight. And truthfully, I struggle with that. It's not that I need more money. It only has to do with how all of the measures by which one values themselves yeah and it sounds like like your intellectual brain would say money can't define me you know like i'm going to use money to do good in the world i can hear you saying something close to that right and then when i hear you saying what you just said is like yeah but there's a struggle there between my head and my heart. There is. Well, between sort of how society measures what success is. So how do you measure it for yourself?

Well, at the end of the day, do I feel that I had positive impact on other people? I never got to use that measure before. It's a very fulfilling measure. But did I bring home enough money to do blank? No, because I'm, you know, a lot of the things I do, I don't do for money. That's so good. Yeah. I mean, not, not good for any judgmental reason, but like, it seems like you're really clear. And I love, I love the fact that you're like, yeah, you know, I still feel the pressures from others, what they think about. No, from myself, from my own sense of myself and my value. I feel really good about the mentoring I do or the organizations that I support or have started. But do I feel like financially I'm contributing to the household at the level that I'm used to and that made me feel so independent?

No. And I'm just being honest that my life isn't perfect either and I still struggle with that. Would I be willing to sacrifice the time that I have to do the things that are most meaningful to me in order to run another company and make all the money? No. So I've made that decision. Okay. So how about this kind of forced game, if you will, and you don't have to play, but it sounds like your life feels really good. You've got meaningful parties at your house, you're giving to the world, you understand resiliency, that you can face down challenges, which probably gives you incredible freedom to go boldlyly to do whatever it is that you want to do next. You're invested in small acts that cascade

to do good, you know, and paying it forward, if you will. That's not the right phrase, but the cascading for good. And that sounds like it's meaningful. It's wonderful. There's fluidity. There's purpose. And it's just right for you. How much money would you take to go run, go back into the ad agency world or something different? Couldn't pay me enough. 20 million a year? Nope. It's not, couldn't. Money is not the decider for me anymore. It's happiness. I know what it's like to have money without fulfillment. And that's just not, there's no amount that makes it feel good. I love it. Okay. I'm not Donald Trump that if you say 5 billion, I'll reconsider. I don't know if you knew, if you, if you heard that funny line, but

he said, there's no, there's no money in the world. Oh, maybe if you offered me 5 billion, I'd think about getting out of the race. That's not me. Yeah. Okay. So, um, I want to know, and I feel like I want to honor your time, but I, I, we haven't hit yet what you, what I think really captures you in an important way, which is your resiliency, which is the way that you, um, either, I don't want, I don't want to lead you in this question, but I want to understand the couple different dimensions of resiliency. So can I just throw the word out there and see how you think about it and why you're so good at it? That's really what I want to understand. Like, what do you do that's prepared yourself? Because you've been in really tough situations and you keep figuring them out.

And I want to figure out how you do that. You know, I'm not sure I have a clear answer to that. I think part of it is just how I'm wired, that I'm incredibly determined and unwilling to fail or let others or situations get the best of me. And so I'm just kind of relentless. And I've always been that way. And persistent. I think part of it is I learned from my mistakes. And so each time you learn from your mistake, you have a little more, a few more tools to get up again when things happen. I think the third is to accept your humanity. Because when you know, I've been through I was bulimic my freshman year of college, I've been through all sorts of, you know, times where I tried to be so close to perfect, by whoever's definition, that it became

an unhealthy obsession. So I've sort of accepted that perfectionism is actually a hindrance rather than a help. And each time I, I have some of these, um, experiences, it lights a fire that says you, you can go on. Sometimes I needed to go on for my kids or for, for whatever, but sometimes it was just, um, you know, the, the option of giving up isn't even, isn't even there. Sometimes when you get up, you're going to go in a different direction. The biggest, you know, slam body slam that I had was when that confluence of losing my health, my job, and my day-to-day parenting all happened at the same moment. Um, but even then, what's the, what's the alternative?

I just don't don't see that there's any alternative than to get up. It might not be that you keep going straight through the door in front of you, it might be that there's a side door that's open that you didn't even notice that's there. But there's always a new opportunity. And if you know, if you're if you're ever wanting to inspire people, you start Googling quotes on this general topic, you'll see people who I hugely admire like Eleanor Roosevelt or somebody who would always say that the hardest way out is always through. That avoiding dealing with the failures or pretending that things aren't hard, not being the person in the ring, doesn't get you anywhere. You know, you're going to learn something as much, probably more, from the times that you're knocked down than the times you fail and the times you succeed. Yeah, so there's some science around this. And what you're hitting on, I think, kind of nails all three of them, which is control,

challenge, and commitment. And starting with the control, you talked about it in your humanity, which is just accept and control what's in your control and do the best job you possibly can with it. And then the other is commitment, like stay the course. There's no other option, you said. Just stay the course and figure it out, whether it's through the side door, the trap door, or straight through it.

But I heard you talk more about moving around like water as opposed to a sledgehammer that goes through. And then love challenge. Just like life is full of challenges, so why not get good at it? And that science, I think, has held up pretty well for me. And it's really the science that's born out of hardiness yeah not necessarily resiliency but they they they tend to hum or hover right around each other I also think that there is one more element which is a willingness to take risks that you can hone if you're not necessarily born with it but you know you know, okay, okay, stop. What does that mean? Like, risk is, I am fascinated with risk. Are you a risk taker? Yes, I'm a complete risk taker. So I lead with

my heart. And sometimes don't think as much ahead of time, you know, whether it's letting my youngest child get on a plane to a slum of Uganda, where I haven't even been yet and teach for the summer and she's 17 years old. And, you know, I, is that the greatest risk you've taken? No, I've taken personal risks too. I mean, giving up everything I was in New York, New Jersey to become someone's partner, eventually wife and something else, but no idea what it is in San Francisco. That was pretty big. Get out of the world where everyone, you know, I already had made my mark. I'd already proven myself as a leader and an expert in the field. And I had clients and employees and, you know, employers who supported and thought well of me. And, you know,

I sort of wiped all of that clean to start again. That was probably my biggest risk. But I'm not, you know, I'm always going to be the one that tries the athletic thing, like the water propelled out of the shoes on the bottom of your feet to fly up in the air. Or, you know, I just, I like trying things that if you said you can go on vacation tomorrow to any place in the world, where would you go? I would say somewhere I've never been. Very cool. And so are you more of a, that, that seems like an adventure than a risk taker, but it's both. Okay. Yeah. Oh, they're definitely going to be part and parcel because I'll invest my heart pretty early in relationships, both platonic and not,

because I would rather be in there trying than to be afraid of getting hurt. Okay. Okay, I love it. And then if there was one or two things that people could get better at to take risk, what would those things be? What would you help people? Looking for the experience rather than the victory. Very cool.

Keep going. I love it. Well, you know, I think people often try to protect what they have rather than aspire to be something that they can't even quite imagine yet. And once you get past the protection and into the, you know, sort of roaming around in an undefined space, your analogy of me like water, you probably didn't know I'm a Pisces. You probably didn't know I'm obsessed with water sports, but there, there is this fluidity to risk-taking that gets you out of, you know, it's, it's, it's the opposite of my cancer box where I put my worries and close it up.

And the risk comes in, um, not having defined edges in what you, in how you choose to live your life, who you choose to make your friends, what you choose to get yourself involved with, but being willing to jump in, even though you don't have all the, all the answers. And it's, you're almost never going to drown. Worst comes to worst, you drag yourself to the side of the pool. You know, it's, it's, that's a really important phrase coming from you because you've been in some really deep waters, both alone and with others. And I love hearing that from you because you've been in some really deep waters both alone and with others and i love hearing that from you you know i really can find some solace in it and at the same time i've come to learn that people that um want to risk and don't it's way more painful oh yeah i bet yeah that's not me so i can only imagine okay brilliant all right so um let's

kind of let's kind of bring this home a little bit, and let's riff off a couple things. How important is the inner game, or how important is the mental part of building business, building relationships, building craft? One to ten, how important is that to you? I'm not sure I understand the question. So there's craft, body, and mind that we can train.

And you've got, you know how to build, your craft is building businesses, building relationships that do good. Or, you know, in whatever facet that you've been in. And so that's the craft part. And then how important is... But I think that part of that is finding out where your natural strengths and affinities intersect and starting there. So then you hone your craft. It's hard to hone your craft if it doesn't already hit the intersections of what you care about and what you do well. Oh, yeah. I totally agree. And when I talk about mental skills, I'm talking about being able to find a sense of calmness with the right amount of intensity in kind of a board meeting or a hallway conversation. Right. That's a super interesting topic because one of the other

lessons I learned the hard way in the business world was how to wait to have any significant conversation until you had enough emotional control to do so. So, you know, the panic that you feel when one of the employees you rely on most quits and being able to have a conversation, an appropriate conversation with people, you have to wait until those things that you're feeling, that fear, that dependence, that panic, that have subsided in order to be your most effective communicator. So a lot of times that emotional skill is not only knowing what to say, but when to say it and to finding your center before you um before you move forward how do you find your center like what are the things that you do to be centered or find center i'm not sure if i'm conscious about it but i know when my emotional yeah i cry easily or i can feel my heart palpitating or I don't know how to start a conversation.

And if any of those signals are coming up, I usually wait. Do you ever start a conversation saying, hey, I'm not sure how to start this conversation? No. No, so you go right into i i wait until i i'm able to say this is going to be a really hard conversation and to give that person a warning that something challenging is about to happen so i'm not a risk taker on that level and that i want to be as thoughtful as possible about having conversations with people that i care about, whether it's in a business setting or in a personal setting. Unless it's truly the answer that I, you know, sometimes when you're parenting, you don't know the right thing to say. Or you can't force your, you know, growing child to do things the way that you want. And so sometimes I do that. I will start the conversation by saying, I don't know how to start this conversation because it really is your choice

and your life. But here's my concern. Sorry. What kind of dog? That's a Labradoodle. His name is Swagger, but he's barking because he's actually not swaggy at all. Wait, wait, wait, wait. His name is Swagger? Swagger. Yeah. I have an swaggy at all. Wait, wait, wait. His name is Swagger? Swagger, yeah. I have an Australian Labradoodle. Ah, so do I. Yeah, aren't they fun? They're awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's do this. Let's go down. Let me give you a couple quick hits and respond to them. Expand as long as you want or say yes, no. And let's see if we can get to some stuff um street smart or analytical street smart do you prefer a slow-paced environment or fast

paced environment fast pace um we know you're a risk taker not a rule follower as much no okay a high need for control or low need for control? Middle. Middle, okay. I'm able to go with the flow a lot, and I'm surrounded by and married to someone who wants a high degree of control, so I've learned to be very comfortable being sort of in the middle of that. I think my natural tendency is more rather than less, but I think as I've gotten older,

I'm much more comfortable going with the flow and knowing I'm okay. If the river turns into rapids or if it turns into something slow and lolling, I could be fine in either one. It's the exact analogy I use in my life. I'm sure it's not a new analogy but at one point I wasn't I feel like either in this world we do it with others but ultimately we're in our own raft and it's great when we can link our rafts with other people but I've always had this image that I'm in like an inner tube and I'm going down a river and when I first was going down the river like when stuff was heavy and it was kind of bigger than I thought I could manage, I wasn't sure what to do. And either I'd kind of bulldoze my way through the rapids or I'd find myself over on the edge. And what I've come to learn over time is that I don't have to bulldoze my way through it.

I can be fluid with the rapids. And if I want to pull over to a little side bank, I can do that too. And just that knowing that the inner skill to be able to adjust to whatever comes up that investment has given me incredible freedom and it sounds a little bit like um we would nod our head to that analogy but yeah yeah okay uh intellectually competitive or physically competitive or both both critical or positive of yourself both critical and positive of yourself? Both. Critical and positive of others when you coach them? Positive with guidance.

So not critical, but I don't hesitate to tell people that there might be a different way for them to look at things or other things for them to try. And certainly frustrated if I'm helping someone, we come up with a plan, and they don't follow the plan. I'm not like, oh, well, we'll try it again next week. I do definitely have some impatience with people who maybe aren't as good, naturally good as I am about doing things well and doing things early and all of that. I'm just being honest yeah no please and if there was um i don't know one to a hundred on a scale and a hundred was like i was really productive on my inner experience my inner thoughts my dialogue whatever that is like really productive doesn't mean it's always nice and pretty and easy but i'm really productive um and i think for you that's probably empathetic and pretty and easy, but I'm really productive. And I think for you, that's probably empathetic and strong and purposeful is the way I would capture that for you.

Like, what percentage of the time are you that as opposed to destructive or self-critical? 95. That's pretty strong. Okay. Pressure comes from? Pressure comes from never being satisfied. No matter how well I do, no matter how many people I help, no matter what I achieve, I'm never satisfied. Personally. Not about other people. Yeah. Okay. it all comes down to

love the crossroad was love if i had a chance to do it over again love more yeah um no i i love more for sure i don't want i don't want to paint it out but i think um i think to accept my humanity more let myself off the hook yeah that's really cool okay um my vision that each of us feels empowered to create meaningful change for the people around us you've thought about that before that wasn't right off the top of your tongue or top of your mind um it's how i live my life. That's awesome. Can you say it again? That we each feel empowered to be able to make meaningful and positive change for the people around us. What do you hope the next generation gets right?

That they see the similarities rather than the differences. And what do you think that will happen, if you could say, the state of women in the next 10 years? What do you see in the next 10 years for women? You know, when I look back on Katie Stanton and some of the early suffragettes and what they were looking for and where we are as women now, we have not come very far. I was lucky enough to meet and talk to Marlo Thomas last week, and she and Gloria Steinem are really good friends. And she's, I think Marlo's close to 80.

She's an amazingly powerful woman still striving to be treated, thought of, paid equally. You know, I hope that that path accelerates. I never would have thought in my lifetime that the acceptance of, you know, today was the announcement that you can't discriminate against someone transgender in the military. And, you know, the acceptance of gay marriage and a lot of things that I might not have seen as moving quickly lately through society have all of a sudden accelerated. And women's equality, meaning men growing into roles where they feel equal obligation from a parenting, from a mentoring, from an inclusion, sharing, openness standpoint that, you know, as women do, I would love to see that same acceleration that we've lately seen with the gay community. Got it. Yeah, very cool. I think that's about what will happen for women, but I don't think it's just women. I think,

you know, I think that men carry a huge amount of the burden in that acceleration. It's how we're raising our boys to become men now that we'll also do that. This is kind of in the weeds, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. That's not a word I use very often, but should men open the door for women if they don't do it for other men? Or, like, what is that thought about? We should all open the door for each other.

I think any of these formal manner things are kind of bullshit. And really what's important is how kindly are we treating each other without differentiating based on anything. Yeah. It feels like some of those, I don't know, old kind of colloquial expectations between gender. I'm not sure how I feel about them. Like I want to work from kindness, not from gender. I want universal kindness. Yeah.

Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Last real question here on the heavy stuff is how do you think about or articulate mastery? Well, I think someone who is truly thinking about it knows that there's no such thing. You know, there are always ways that we can learn more, do things better, that our preconceived notions of success or reaching the top are false representations.

That mastery is only the acceptance that you've come a long way but still have plenty of things to learn. was to die today. And people, people from the outside might look at my career and my life and say, Oh, she had mastery over multiple things. I don't think I have it all. And I would hate to die feeling like I'd learned, figured, accomplished everything there was to accomplish. How boring. Your answers are rad. You know, we didn't talk about this, but I've come to know Lee Clow. Yeah. Yeah. So I know you guys spent some time at Chiat Day. Yeah.

I imagine you overlapped or something. We did, but he was in L.A. and I was in New York. Okay. But I did have some interactions with him, yeah. You know, I think Jimmy Smith. Does that name ring a bell? Yeah. Yeah, I've come to be friends with Jimmy Smith as well.

Yeah. Super smart people. Aren't they? Super smart, amazing people. Yeah, that's phenomenal. Okay. And surfers. I think they're surfers.

That's what happened for me, I know. So that is, this was, what are we at? An hour and 40. I've loved this. So, and I just want to say thank you. You're so welcome. It's totally fun. I love thinking about and talking about things that most people don't spend enough time thinking and talking about.

So thank you for including me. Oh, just what a great honor. And so where can people find you? Like, is it Parley House or is it Lantern? You know, it's funny. You can certainly go lantern.com to see what I'm doing with our company and bringing cognitive behavioral therapy to people. Parley House is a closed community to create safety and privacy for people. So we don't publicize, but there are articles written about us.

You can certainly look at my Facebook or Instagram. What are those handles? Facebook is just my name, and I think so is Instagram. Okay, not hard, not hard to find. But I tend to, you know, I tend to not be self promotional. And I am working on a book. And so when that book comes out, and it's building on some of the themes that we've talked about today, which includes stories of people whose small acts of kindness have changed the world for other people, then there'll definitely be some handles and things to talk about. But right now, instead of looking for me, if you just think about what you could do today to make something a tiny bit better for someone else, that's thinking

of me in sort of this indirect but but way more important way than, than tracking me. Kick ass. That's what I think. I think your life is that, and this conversation was that, and, um, I'm, I'm really wanting to think about opening my home to be able to have conversations with some loved ones and some people that will challenge conversation, um, similar to what you've done to Parley house. I mean, it's a brand new idea to me. So yeah, right. I mean, that's my whole goal, because Parley is, it's hard to scale it. Because you need someone to host and to open their homes and to, you know, create the content and to make it be completely inclusive. So you know, the minute you have a hierarchical society, there are people wherever you land that aren't going to feel comfortable.

So finding ways to bring in as many diverse people as possible into the conversation is the ultimate goal. Okay, brilliant. Okay, so for everyone listening, there's some really concrete things here that we can all go do. And it starts with small acts. And it's been a guiding thought for Anne and the experiences that she's had in her life and the success. So thank you for listening.

Thank you for being part of this community about people that are switched on and looking to understand mastery or living it. And thank you for sharing comments on iTunes. It's significant and it helps. And you can find us at finding mastery.net. You can also find an online for go lantern. Is it lantern? No, go lantern. www.golantern.com.

Perfect. And we just fired up a community on Facebook, Finding Mastery, where they're starting to feed each other in questions and answers and responses. And so, yeah, so that's happening as well. And then last little thing here is that we've got Minutes on Mastery. You can go to iTunes there as well for quick three-minute hits of insights and pearls of wisdom that I can't wait to cut up on yours, Anne. So I'm looking forward to it. There's been so many of them.

Can't wait to see what you pull out. That'll be totally fun. Brilliant. Okay, Anne, thanks so much of them. Can't wait to see what you pull out. That'll be totally fun. Brilliant. Okay. And thanks so much. Thank you. Bye. 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 community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday.

Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors.

And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.