On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Episode Date: March 26, 2025What habits do you think lead to success? How do you handle setbacks or failures? Today, Jay Shetty sits down with Suneera Madhani, a visionary entrepreneur who defied the odds to build a billion-doll...ar business. As the founder of Stax Payments and CEO of Worth AI, Suneera opens up about her remarkable journey—from being the daughter of Pakistani immigrants and the first in her family to attend college, to becoming a trailblazer in the fintech industry. Her story is a powerful testament to resilience, innovation, and breaking barriers in a world where women are often underrepresented in leadership roles. In this insightful conversation, Jay and Suneera dive into the mindset shifts necessary to scale a business, from overcoming self-doubt to making tough leadership calls. Suneera shares her game-changing “Do, Delegate, Delete” framework—a powerful time management strategy that has helped her balance the demands of entrepreneurship and motherhood. Jay emphasizes the value of living with intention, drawing parallels between Suneera’s disciplined approach and his own experiences with self-awareness, productivity, and personal growth. Together, they discuss the unique challenges women face in business, especially in male-dominated industries like fintech. Suneera opens up about the gender disparities in venture capital funding and leadership, sharing eye-opening statistics that highlight the struggles many female entrepreneurs face. More importantly, she offers practical strategies for women to break through these barriers—building strong networks, seeking mentorship, and how to step into executive roles with confidence. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Turn Rejection Into Opportunity How to Effectively Manage Time as an Entrepreneur How to Scale a Business to the Next Level How to Balance Entrepreneurship and Family Life How to Build a Strong and Supportive Network How to Succeed as a Woman in a Male-Dominated Industry How to Shift Your Mindset for Long-Term Success No matter where you are in your journey—whether you're launching a business, chasing a passion, or facing life’s challenges—remember that success isn't just about hitting a milestone. It's about staying aligned with your purpose and pushing forward with intention. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Join Jay for his first ever, On Purpose Live Tour! Tickets are on sale now. Hope to see you there! What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:46 Highly-Caffeinated Time Hacker 03:46 The Best Time Management Strategy 07:35 How to Delegate Time & Tasks Effectively 11:05 How It All Started 16:42 Collaboration to Solve Hard Problems 19:46 The Risk of Playing It Safe 25:50 How to Set Empowering Goals 30:15 Build Your Network 37:19 Don’t Lose Yourself in the Process 41:37 Building a Business with Family 50:21 Find Your Niche to Build a Product That Lasts 55:19 Mindset Shift to Build a Successful Business 01:01:24 The Darkest Day for an Entrepreneur 01:08:41 The Importance of Self Reflection 01:12:16 A Supportive Partner is Key 01:20:21 Suneera on Final Five Episode Resources: Suneera Madhani | Website Suneera Madhani | LinkedIn Suneera Madhani | Instagram The CEO SchoolSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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I think it starts with, don't just do,
know where you wanna go.
So if you know where you wanna go,
and this can be for your company,
this can be for your personal goals,
this can be for a hobby or an athletic goal,
you have whatever it is,
you have to define what that end goal looks like
so that you can work backwards.
And I'm a huge believer in the rule of three for everything.
I can't remember more than three things.
Everything is about threes for me.
It's not just about getting everything done,
it's what are the three most important things
that I'm going to get done
that are going to be towards the goals
that are going to get me there.
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Jay Shetty.
Jay Shetty.
The one, the only Jay Shetty.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,
the place you come to listen, learn and grow.
You know that On Purpose is the home of deep, profound, powerful conversations
with humans who've lived extraordinary lives, achieved phenomenal things,
but at the heart of it have a deep purpose.
They also have the ability to open their hearts, open their minds,
to share the true failures, the lessons that they've had on their journey.
Today's guest is someone that I'm so excited to introduce to you. to share the true failures, the lessons that they've had on their journey.
Today's guest is someone that I'm so excited
to introduce to you.
She's had truly a breathtaking journey
and it's one that is going to inspire you
and help you learn how you too
can build an amazing business,
understand what it feels like to manage
and balance family life through it all
and at the same time go and pursue more even after success.
I'm speaking about the one and only Sunira Madani,
a true trailblazer in business world.
Sunira is the CEO and co-founder
of FinTech Startup Worth AI.
Sunira previously founded Stacks Payments,
where she took an idea and built it first
into the private startup with a hundred and forty million dollars in recurring revenue and then into a
business valued at over a billion dollars.
Sunehra is also the founder of the CEO school podcast and the founder of the
CEO school company. If you haven't subscribed make sure you do because both
of them empower women to scale their businesses and change the landscape
of the traditional business world.
Suneera is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants
and the first person in our family
to attend college as well.
Please welcome to the show Suneera Madani.
Suneera, it is such a joy to have you here.
Your journey is truly remarkable,
and I'm so glad that we get to share it here
with the On Purpose community.
Jay, thank you so much for having me.
I'm so grateful to be here.
I'm so excited to just carry this amazing conversation
that we've already been having.
We're like, turn the cameras on.
It's time.
I know.
I felt like, I was like, we're probably
going to have to put some of that in.
But I want to start with this.
And it's probably nothing to do with what I said we were just about to talk about,
but you are a self-proclaimed, highly caffeinated time hacker.
And I was like, my team and everyone was like, we want to be that.
Tell us what that means.
Oh, I've gotten so much more calm in the last several years,
but I'm definitely highly caffeinated,
that's for sure. I think productivity is something I've naturally just had to get better at as a CEO,
and especially as a working mother. I have an eight-year-old daughter and a five-year-old daughter.
I've been building companies since I was 25 years old and had kids along the way.
And so honestly, time is our most precious commodity. And especially when you're a busy mom running business, you have to be really
mindful of that. And so I feel like I've found every which way to time hack.
And I do think that I'm a productivity expert for sure.
Okay, so we're going to need all of those tips and tools today.
For sure. I think there's a lot of our audience that really wants to know how to use their time more wisely.
Understand how to be their time more wisely,
understand how to be more productive and effective.
But I want to start off by,
actually let's just dive into that.
Let's talk about that.
What did you used to believe time management was,
and now having been so effective for this many years,
what have you now come to the conclusion
what time management actually is?
Freedom of dollar is what we all start to chase, right?
And there's nothing wrong with that.
There's absolutely nothing wrong
with wanting financial success for yourself,
for your family.
And so freedom of dollar is something
that when I started my journey,
that was one component of building the business.
But really it became about freedom of time.
Even if you have that level of success
with freedom of dollar,
we still all have the same amount of time.
And so it really is about that freedom of time and being able to enjoy the journey along
the way.
I want to be able to do what I call the $1,000 tasks, not the $10 tasks.
And for me, $1,000 tasks is when I get home, I want to cook with my family.
Can I outsource that?
Absolutely.
But that to me is not a $1,000 task.
That's a ten
dollar task for some others. But for me, spending time with my family is like the number one
most important place where I'm trying to keep my time freedom. It's really, really important
that I think about tasks in that way. It's something I really encourage. I mentor so
many women in business and we have a lot of responsibility. There is this extra layer of responsibility.
I'm not saying, I mean, I have such an incredible partner,
such an incredible husband, and we co-parent,
we do all the things, but as a working mom,
there's just that extra layer of a million things
that have to get done.
As a CEO, everyone wants a piece of your time.
How you spend your time is, it's everything.
And so really thinking about what are your thousand dollar tasks and just focusing on
those and everything else, finding a way to either delegate it or delete it.
Do we even not like actually have to do it?
I have this process of like do delegate delete.
So every couple of weeks I'll do a time audit.
I love this already.
Yeah, I do a time audit because your seasons are changing. Like what you're doing right now travels insane. Whatever else it is, do a time audit. I love this already, but I do a time audit because your seasons are changing.
Like what you're doing right now, travels insane, whatever else it is.
Do a time audit.
So we do a time audit and I take a look at how am I actually spending my time?
Is it an I'm intentional about my time?
How do I want to spend my time?
And so if I see, you know, certain habits and certain things and I'm like, OK, no,
this has to come off our plate.
This can be delegated off.
Am I spending too much time in one area?
This can apply to anyone at any point
is to do a time audit and to take control back of it.
And it's also important, I think,
when you ask the question of like,
how do I view time now?
I used to have this mantra that I used to say every day
because things are so crazy busy
and running two companies, the podcast, the kids,
all this stuff. Every morning I'd wake up, Jay and I'd say, the podcast, the kids, all the stuff.
Every morning I'd wake up, Jay and I'd say, I have all the time in the world.
I have all the time in the world. I have all the time in the world.
But I didn't. And I didn't believe it inside because I didn't have all the time in the world.
And now a lot has shifted where I actually do believe I have all the time in the world.
And that just comes with presence. That just means that wherever I'm going to be and I learned how to be really present in
everything that I was in, I was in with such intention that I did have all the time in the
world. I think that those are some ways that have really shifted my perspective about time.
But I do think it's the most important commodity that we have. It's the biggest gift that you can
give yourself to everyone around you. And I think the world is changing so fast. We're such an on-demand
everything. Everything is so speedy. Everything coming at us from social media to life to
work, everyone's life. It's not a CEO's life that's busy. Every single person that's probably listening feels exactly that feeling.
It's so busy, but is it busy or is it full?
And that's the shift.
I was busy before and I learned how to make my life
going from busy to intentionally full with purpose.
When you're coming up with criteria for do, delegate, delete,
how do you decide?
Because I find that often, especially in the beginning,
and I'm sure it was the same for you,
and we'll get to that in a second,
but there's a feeling like I have to do everything,
and I probably have to because I can't afford to delegate.
You may not have a team in the beginning.
So when you start growing or when you start building,
how do you find the ability to decide,
okay, this is what I'm still going to do.
This is what I delegate and This is what I delete.
Because often founders and startup owners or anyone will say to me,
I think everything's important.
How do I decide what's important to do with my time?
It's one understanding where you want to go.
So I think it starts with don't just do, know where you want to go.
So if you know where you want to go, and this can be for your company,
this can be for your personal goals,
this can be for a hobby or an athletic goal,
you have whatever it is,
you have to define what that end goal looks like
so that you can work backwards.
And I think that is an important part of even in business,
especially as startups, you want to do all the things,
but you just can't.
So it's really deciding what are the three things.
And I'm a huge believer in the rule of three for everything.
I can't remember more than three things.
Everything is about threes for me.
And so it's three goals for, let's say it's for the quarter, for the year.
How do we work backwards that that's the goal?
And then everything else is a delete. It's a no.
And every day I look and I plan my needle movers is like
in business is a very common term, but it's not just about getting everything done. It's
what are the three most important things that I'm going to get done that are going to be
towards the goals that are going to get me there.
And so you have to start getting really comfortable with saying no. You have to start getting
comfortable with you not being the one to do it.
And even if you don't have a team, even if you don't have the resources, it starts with
you, right?
You are the core nucleus of your company, of your life, of the things.
That DNA then breeds into the next year, first hire that you're going to do and the next
hire that you're going to do.
And the job of a CEO is helping everyone prioritize.
Like that's my job every day.
My job is not to do the rowing.
So I think about, you know, in rowing club
or like the coxswain that's at the front of the boat,
his or her job is not actually to row,
it's to give direction, to cheer everyone on,
to make sure that we're going in the right direction.
He or she's not actually the one rowing.
And so your job is just to keep everyone rowing in the same direction and prioritizing.
And that's probably the hardest job as well, is what is priority, what you ask.
But if you don't know it and if you're not in line with it,
then your team's not going to be in line with it.
Your life is not going to be in line with it.
And this is something that I've realized that falls into like the CEO part and the life part.
Always both. It's the same.
The thing that really hit me because I've been thinking a lot about this is the needle moving part.
Because often what we think of delegation or roles as we also think,
oh, someone else will take care of all the little stuff, I'll do the big stuff.
And actually you're then deprioritizing that person because you also want them to be doing needle moving things.
And you may be doing bigger, larger, more long-term needle moving things,
but you don't want to be like,
I'm going to hand off all the little things to someone else to deal with
because those little things may actually become a distraction to you and that individual.
So anyway, I want to go back to when you start thinking about building this billion dollar empire.
And did you know the day you started Stacks that you wanted it to be a billion dollar business? I didn't know I could go build a million dollar business, let alone a billion dollar one.
I love hearing that. That's great.
I had no idea. I was 26 years old, no money in my bank account.
I was working for a financial services company.
I was the first person in my family to graduate college. I grew up in the most incredible,
incredible household. I was getting my MBA without even knowing it. My parents were immigrants.
They came from Karachi, Pakistan. I was born in Chicago, so I was first generation here.
We moved to Texas. I went to 10 different schools in 12 years, which is an insane part of my story.
But it was the pursuit of the American dream. And for my parents, it was about
allowing us an opportunity to be anything we wanted to be to get an education that is 100%
every Indian, Pakistani culture. Education is so important. So I was a really great student. I'm
the firstborn eldest daughter, all the things.
And I loved my childhood.
I loved seeing my parents work really hard.
Everything wasn't perfect, but we had the best family values.
I was surrounded by so much confidence around me.
My dad would wake me and my brother up every morning.
And he was this like loud energy,
like four in the morning wake up kind of guy.
Every morning he'd wake us up and he'd say,
Sonny, that's my nickname.
He'd say, you have it.
Like that is what I grew up around.
Every single day somebody telling you that you have it,
and it was the most annoying thing.
They're just our biggest champions.
My brother and I is biggest champions.
And so you carry that level of like responsibility. thing. They're just our biggest champions. My brother is and I's biggest champions. And
so you carry that level of like responsibility. You want to, you want to succeed, you want
to do well. And growing up in also a Muslim household, like I didn't feel at all like
my, my gender, like I was just the eldest kid. And so that meant that I got, I got to
do everything first. Like I never felt my gender until I went into the workforce.
Wow. That's yeah.
Not even in college. In college, like, you know, I went to, I went to University of Florida.
We had like three championships in my four years of college. I studied abroad. I did
all of these amazing cool things. And then I get into the workforce and I saw that there were
no women in any of the companies that I worked for. I worked for three different companies, and the only women that I saw working in the organizations
were in either customer support or in admin roles.
There was nobody in technology, there was nobody in anything
else besides supporting roles.
And that was the first time that I was like, I'm different.
For the first time, I noticed my difference.
And I think it was that confidence.
I never had that negative self-talk.
And the self-talk actually started to get created
at that point in my early 20s.
But I never had that going into it.
And so I feel super grateful.
And I think that's how I try to parent as well,
is you can't over love a kid.
Like that's where the confidence comes from,
especially for young girls.
Because in a world like today, no one is telling them. And then their negative self-talk, because of how the world looks,
because of the inequities that are plainly there, we start to form those conversations in our own
head. And so I'm so grateful that I had super cheerleaders that I didn't even know that I was
rolling my eyes at that
really carried me through where I was like, no, I am different and I do have it and I
can see things differently. So I was that bad employee. I would challenge the status
quo and then I had this really amazing idea to go start a subscription-based processing
system and I took it back to my mailbox bosses and I was pretty much laughed out of the
room. Like it was, you know, little girl, great ideas, but this is not going to work. And so I
came back home and I flew back from Houston to with family dinners. That was always something
always were around food and family. And my dad looks to me and, you know, so disappointed in
how the conversation
went and he said Sonny, he goes, why don't you just go start the company? And I said
dad, where do I go find Mr. Visa? How? And 25, like where do I go build a fintech? I
don't have, I don't know. And he said, you'll figure it out. And so that's exactly what
I did. And I moved back into my parents' house and he's like, and if you don't in six months, you'll get your MBA.
That was it. That was it. It was as easy as that.
Amazing. I want to unpack so many things.
So now you've given me enough stuff to just grapple with.
I loved what you said about the idea that you can't over love someone.
Like that's beautiful to hear.
And I always feel that my mom's love was like that for me. I always grew up believing
I was lovable. My mom's love shielded me from so much of the
other pain and stress and everything else I saw happening
around me. And a lot of what you just said about women I see to
be so true today because I've seen research and studies that
show that if a man sees a job specification
and can do less than half of it, he'll still apply.
And if a woman sees something and even if she can do 80% of it, she won't apply
because she can't do the 20% remaining.
And so, even when I talk to my male friends today and I know a lot of their wives
and partners and girlfriends and whatever else it may be, they all find that so many women are scared
to go out there and start a company.
They're scared to take that risk.
They're fearful that they can't,
or they're waiting till they have everything,
like all their ducks in a row
before they give themselves an opportunity.
How did early on in your life,
your dad saying this repetitive statement to you,
how did that not become a pressure
and how did it feel empowering?
Because I feel that sometimes if you're told you've got it,
you can do this.
A lot of people see that as pressure
and then they feel they can't live up to it.
What was different about the parenting aspect of that?
Because I think a lot of parents listening
may take a lot from what your dad did, right?
I was always brought in on all the conversations.
I think something that my parents did, we had struggles
and we had challenges and we had to move and we had to various businesses.
But we were always at the dinner table having the hard conversations.
You know, if there were hard things that were taking place about money
or about business or about family, we were solving problems together.
So my parents would always ask our perspective.
That is something that I do feel is very interesting.
Just as a child, I try to do that with my daughters
at the dinner table now is to ask them like what they think.
So thinking about solutions versus,
how they would think about solving it.
So I feel like I was really involved in hearing,
my voice felt heard.
And I think that's important because as women, I do feel like our voice isn't heard.
And so I grew up in a place where my voice was not just heard, it was really valued.
And my perspective was valued.
And there's just so many memories that I can think of.
I had such an amazing, amazing childhood.
And I know a lot of people don't have that.
On my 17th birthday, this is really crazy. So we went to Atlantic City for a Bollywood concert. It was like a Charo
Con concert, then when they would come out and do the shows. We went to Atlantic City
for this concert and there was a casino. I'm not even of legal age to great gamble. And
my dad takes me to the blackjack table. Okay. And he was an avid, like he definitely had to great gamble.
My parents were also really young. They had me when they were like 20.
And so people are probably assuming I'm like his girlfriend or something.
But I'm sitting at the blackjack table next to him and he hands me a pile of chips and
he's like, bet.
And in my head, I'm like, how much is this?
Am I going to lose the money?
What's the value?
And his response, he goes, just feel it.
He's like, if you feel like you're going to win, bet more. If you feel like you're not going to win, pull back.
My ability to now take risks and listen to my gut
and not worry about, you know, like scared money doesn't make money as well.
Right? So my ability to be able to say,
OK, I feel like I'm going to win.
I feel like looking at the hands or learning blackjack
and I was great at math and I can get this concept.
That was one of my like a core memory that I can think of.
But I was always involved in the conversation.
I feel like it was more tactical with action,
not just being told that you should go do this.
I definitely feel very blessed that I did have that.
And now my mom lives literally across the street from me.
She's like one rock away and we get to,
she gets to raise my kids with me.
So it's wonderful.
It's amazing.
When you go from pitching your idea to all of your bosses
and they kind of look at you like,
this is going to fail, this isn't going to work.
And then obviously your dad gives you
that encouraging statement.
You said that you moved back home then.
Yeah.
So I'm imagining that you are making a decent amount of money working
at a financial services firm. And when you choose to start a company, I'm
guessing you took a massive pay hit and I assume you were living out and then
you moved back home. Now the reason why I'm pinpointing that moment is because I
think those golden handcuffs that so many of us tie around ourselves with the
safe corporate job and when you've got a great degree and you finally get that job you've been waiting to get for like 18 years of your life
and everyone respects you for it, it looks good on your LinkedIn and your resume.
I found so many people struggle at that point to say, well, I'm willing to take less money.
I'm willing to downgrade my lifestyle.
I'm willing to postpone and delay the gratification of having nice things
because chances are if I live with my parents and I'm not making the money anymore, life changes.
Walk me through deeply that decision because I think for so many of our community listening
and so many people that I mentor or coach speak to,
this seems to be one of the most pivotal moments of their life that were you willing to go two steps backwards
in order to go five steps forward?
And so many of us are so scared to go two steps backwards
because we've got so used to a certain level of lifestyle.
So walk us through that key decision point.
I actually ask myself, would I do it again?
And I think that it also depends on, like, it's the risk
taking ability, right? It takes courage to take risk. One of my favorite, most favorite books that
I've recently read is Die with Zero. It is such an incredible book. It's this crazy concept of just
taking risks and you have your golden years of your life. Like we should be spending our money,
doing our things in our prime.
And that makes complete sense.
And the risk tolerance that you can take also changes with your age.
Would I take these risks if I had two daughters at home?
And maybe if I was a soul breadwinner or where?
I don't know.
And so I can look back and say, I didn't have much to lose.
And it was a level of risk.
I had a steady job.
I was on a career path. I could't have much to lose. And it was a level of risk. I had a steady job, I was on a career path,
I could have totally miserably failed.
I think you have to think about
not what is the risk in doing it,
I think you have to think about
what is the risk in not doing it, right?
So what is the risk if you don't do the thing?
And that's kind of how I try to make
the risky decisions today.
And I know we're gonna talk more on this this journey is going to come full circle in 10
years.
I left my company at the most record high of the company.
But the risk of me staying was a detriment to my health and my burnout and my all the
things that I had left to go accomplish.
And so it's really about the risk of not doing the action.
But at that time, I think it was, I was young and I could, and you do have to take a step
back.
And I would say, I think social media does a horrible job of showing us success.
There's so much saturation of success.
There's not enough failures that are being shown.
It's not enough.
It is hard to build a business.
Less than 2% of female founders ever even break a million in revenue.
That is the most insane statistic.
Men are eight times more likely to achieve that.
Venture capital, right?
I'm going to go build a fintech.
Less than currently, 2023, less than 3% of capital goes to women founders, less than 1%,
it's in the decimals, goes to minority founders.
What was I even thinking trying to go raise capital
out of Orlando, Florida, not even Silicon Valley, right?
And so I think there's a naivete when you're young,
and I think it's beautiful.
I think that it's the most amazing thing.
Like, I even think about parenting, like, oh my God, now if I knew all the things. I think that it's the most amazing thing. I even think about parenting.
Oh my god, now if I knew all the things that I knew
when we were young and doing the things,
I think that having a little bit of not knowing
what's on the other side is actually really beautiful too.
Embrace that.
Now that I know I'm building second time again,
and I'm building from experience,
which means I can catapult faster and do things differently
but I also know what's ahead. I loved when I didn't know what was coming so I didn't know that I could
go build that billion dollar business and all I did was focus on putting one step one foot in front
of the other every day. I showed up for a job I always say this that was harder than the one I had
yesterday. Every day I had a job that was hard because the company was growing. Something else was happening.
That's a pretty cool place to be in from a young growth perspective.
So if you enjoy that, then entrepreneurship is for you because it doesn't get easier.
You get better, but it doesn't get easier.
I actually think what you said makes a lot of sense that at that time, there was a sense of you didn't have the pressure
of the success story that social media puts around you.
And so now it's like, everyone thinks to themselves,
I have to build a million dollar, billion dollar business.
And as soon as you say that, it's so hard
because it's such a long journey to get there
that it's such an overwhelming mountain. And it's almost like you're standing at the base of a
mountain and it looks so high and you're just like how am I ever gonna get to the
top and I remember the same like when we launched our podcast I didn't have a
number of downloads I was trying to reach or I didn't have a number of
followers that I was like oh this would be success it was like this is what I
love this is the stories I want like, this is what I love.
This is the stories I want to tell.
This is how we want to serve our community.
This is the experience we want to build.
And that's how we started.
And then of course, everything got more strategic
as we developed and we learned more and everything.
But I didn't have that pressure on day one.
And I think if I did, I may never have put out a video
and would never have put out a piece of content
because it was going to be years or months or days until you actually reached this false goal you set
yourself.
So when you're starting out, how do you set goals that are empowering and not debilitating?
Because I see a lot of founders setting very debilitating goals.
I think the goals have to be in line with why are you doing what you're doing?
I think that the numerical success will come from it.
But if that's what you're defining as your goals upfront,
you're not going to...
That's where the mountain gets really high.
Versus if you're really just showing up to go serve
the five audience members that you were like,
hey, I just want to do this podcast.
And I just, whoever listens, listens.
Like this is what I want to do.
When I first started the business,
I knew that there was a gap in what we were doing.
I literally sold the first 100 customers
out of the trunk of my car.
This is when like payment terminals were like a real thing
and I would carry them in my car.
I'd go around shopping plazas.
It was just a completely different,
I had to go meet my customers where they were at.
And every day, my goal was, I just want one person
to say yes, that was it.
That's a great goal.
That's it, and I knew what I wanted to serve small business.
I had such a passion, I knew what I could help them with.
And so it's really important to stay focused on that.
And it's hard, like, I really, that empathy comes
from a place because I find myself in that now, because I think social media makes it really, really difficult. We see
living in this comparison culture, living in, it's hard not to when you see it. And it's nice.
It's also nice to see success because you're like, hey, that's possible for me. There's an amazing
truth in that. And you should have, I have my, I make my vision board every year, right? And if I'm not going to have big visions and big goals, I do believe in the power of dreaming big. But you have to stay rooted
in showing up for that one person or that one customer and building your product and solution
set to really serve. I think that that's where most of the most successful companies come from.
And that's why I love women in business.
I love, love meeting and I get an opportunity with everything that I do with a podcast and
CEO school to just meet and mentor so many women.
I never meet a woman who's just started the business or a business for the sake of it.
Every woman I meet is building a business because somebody wasn't solving something
for their kids' school.
Somebody wasn't solving something for their industry.
There's a technology that they see this world in a different way that no one's solving for.
There's a greater purpose and she's the last one.
She's so exhausted from nobody solving it.
She's like, screw it.
I got to do it. I got to do it.
I got to do it.
That's literally how women are starting businesses.
We're not first to raise our hands to say, oh yeah, entrepreneurship is where we're at.
We're solving real problems because we really care.
I think that's the empathetic part, the nurturing part, the problem solving part of women.
Women actually end up becoming the most successful investments
for venture capitalists. Women actually end up becoming the most incredible leaders in
organizations. I do think that the world would look very, very different in the environment
that we are in today if we had more women at the top across the world on a global standpoint.
So it is important because women build with purpose.
And I think that that's what you have to,
you have to stay grounded.
And if nothing's gonna take you there,
because when you talk about those goals, Jay,
as soon as you start to reach, if it's just the goal,
before you even get to the goal,
you're raising the goal again.
Before you get to the next goal,
you're raising that goal again.
You have to check yourself in that.
And I fell into that trap. So once we started to get the success and we started to the next goal, you're raising that goal again. You have to check yourself in that. And I fell into that trap.
So once we started to get the success and we started to grow the business,
our first year we did $5 million in payments through our ecosystem.
Within year five, we did $5 billion.
It was real, it was hard, it was fast.
We were scaling, we were growing.
And then I just became a product of living in this FinTech boys club and defining success
on everyone else's terms.
And I stopped checking in with what I actually want.
I stopped checking in with what my customers really wanted.
I stopped checking in.
I was just building because now there was this playbook of this tech playbook.
This is how we have this, a series A, B, C. Here's what's next.
Here's how it's all about value,
it's all about this,
it's about acquisitions,
and I definitely have a lot of lessons
from building in that way
that I had to really check myself
when we reached the top.
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The statistics you mentioned a couple of moments ago
about the number of female founders,
funding going to female founders,
those are so alarming
and they're not even close to being good.
No.
Like they're so far behind.
What were some of the blocks
and the barriers you saw for women
that you had to learn to navigate?
And how would you encourage women who are in that space right now? barriers you saw for women that you had to learn to navigate.
And how would you encourage women who are in that space right now? Because it can get so easy to get discouraged.
It's so easy to become bitter.
It's so easy to become completely disempowered.
And by the way, all of that would be extremely valid based on the
statistics you just shared.
What did you learn that if you were like, here are three lessons, master
classes,
moments of navigation that I learned
that helped me play the game and figure it out
as opposed to give up on the game and quit
because it was too hard.
What would you say were the biggest three things
that you were like,
these three things taught me how to play the game
and I had to learn to navigate these
in order to win in this world?
I would say the first thing is to build your network.
Like that is the number one thing.
I think what has made the boys club so successful is that is they do business
on the golf courses and through relationships and through this college.
And they went to this school and there is a network.
There is a boys club network.
We haven't had an opportunity to build a network.
We've only been in the workforce, you the workforce since the 1940s, 50s,
since post-World War.
The business world has not been designed for women in mind.
And so it is important to start building
that network immediately.
And so get out of the screen, get into the room.
So that's the number one first piece of advice
that I have for every woman building everywhere
is build your network.
The boys club isn't bad, right? So find the right supporters, find the right allies.
I had the most incredible, I had two male co-founders, my brother and my other brother. We built alongside and I had the most amazing mentors, male mentors that had been there,
done that. So I do think that you have to find the right men around you for support as well.
So seek allies and ask for help.
Great point.
Because the world isn't one or the other.
People do want to help.
And I think as women, this goes back to like the number two is that we carry all of the
burden.
We carry all of this extra mental pressure.
We carry all of this self-talk, the doubt,
and again, all valid, but we never,
we're the last to ask for help.
We're always pouring into everyone.
I see this from my own mother.
I see this me as a mother.
I have to remind myself
that I need to be poured into as well.
We're just, that's how our DNA is.
This is how we've been physically designed and built from our primitive years and days,
you know, from the stone ages.
That's what our jobs were.
We're nurturers.
We're part of, but we were part of the village, right?
We didn't have to do it alone in this world.
Why do we feel like we have to do it alone?
And so get comfortable with asking for help.
So getting those allies, super, super important.
Third piece of advice that I have for female founders is to do it anyway.
Go for it anyway.
And so there's going to be a lot of noise.
There's going to be a lot of people that are going to doubt you.
Every time you're going to step into a room, there's going to be somebody, and I've experienced
this in every room that I've been in. I can name countless stories of the misogyny, of the sexism, of the racism, and even the
ageism. Even being young, you're doubted. I can think of my first CEO conference when I
got investors was venture backed. It's not anyone's fault. I was the first portfolio company that was
you know, venture backed, you know, it's not anyone's fault. It's just I was the first portfolio company that was founded, like that was a female founded portfolio company. And I arrived
to this conference. And every CEO walking in through the door, stopped me and was like,
Hey, where's the event? Hey, where do I get my name badge? Hey, where do I get they just assumed
that I was like the event manager until you know, one of the LPs was like, I'm welcoming our newest portfolio CEO, Sidira,
and then their faces, right?
And so just ignore it as best as you can.
And you just have to keep showing up in those rooms
and be authentically you, right?
I think that's the third piece of advice
is it took me so long to get comfortable
with fully showing up as myself.
And I mean, it's not my fault.
I had to put on a lot of armor.
I was one of the only women in the boys club
and there's so many stories of how I would show up.
I called myself a man in a skirt.
It's like how I would dress.
I could not eat another steak at a steak house.
Like it was like, I was doing all the things to fit in
and that's natural.
That's human tendency. You wanna be part of the club the things to fit in and that's natural. That's human
tendency. You want to be part of the club. So I'm not going to disrupt the norm. But I think that
where the change really happened for me was standing up to my board and to the team and
being comfortable in leading the way as Senera. That came later for me and it came through
confidence. It came through doing it and finding the courage to be confident in my own ability.
But I wish I found that sooner.
So, my third piece of advice is to just, to do it anyway, show up in the rooms and show up as you.
You don't have to be a man in a skirt.
Like be exactly how you are and I think that the world is, I think it's changing, Jay.
So, I think it is, it's getting better.
The statistics aren't there,
and I've got thoughts on why the stats aren't there.
Tell us.
It's because we're not holding institutions accountable.
There is an accountability component.
Shit does not change
unless you hold somebody accountable to it.
So venture capitalists, where is the funding going?
Why aren't we mandating that at least percentages
of these funds go towards women-owned businesses.
Lending, banking, that's exactly why we're building Worth again.
I did not want to go be a serial entrepreneur.
I am exhausted of building businesses.
But there isn't an equitable landscape, and we have to hold institutions accountable as
well.
And so I'm trying to do that by standardizing the business credit score and holding institutions
accountable for equitable lending and for an equitable financial ecosystem.
But I think that those things have to change as well as our consumer behavior, as well
as so many things.
There's so many things that have to change.
And I do believe that the dialogue is happening, which is important.
That's where it starts.
But action comes from doing.
And so that's gonna be the next big step.
And I'm really curious to see how we're gonna do that
in my generation.
I want my daughter's generations,
I want my kids to, I have two daughters,
for them to grow up in a world that they can be and do.
And right now they have no concept just like I did, right?
And so I'm raising them in the same way
and they're so strong and so independent
and so cool and so different and all the things.
And I hope that that continues,
like they can always continue to be themselves
and have that positive dialogue,
not just from me as a parent,
but from their own self,
because the world hopefully looks different for them.
Yeah, no, great advice.
And you reminded me of a story I heard when I was in England.
I heard the speaker talking about, and I may get the date wrong,
but I think she built a big tech company in the 80s in England.
She talked about how when she started out, she used to call other CEOs
and she'd pretend to be her own assistant.
Yeah.
And she'd say, I'm setting up a meeting for Steve Shirley.
Her name was Stephanie Shirley.
And she'd be like, Hey, I'm calling on behalf of Steve Shirley.
Steve Shirley would love to come and meet you.
The person would book in the appointment.
And then she'd turn up as a woman and they'd be like, wait, how's your name Steve?
She's like, Oh, they go, I go by Steve because I'm Stephanie.
And her name became Steve Shirley because that's what she was known as.
And that's what it took.
And now I'm hoping times are changing and things are shifting.
Of course, drastically since then,
but still that feeling of women feeling like,
I have to go to a steakhouse.
Maybe I have to hang out here.
We're hoping culture is changing, but if we're completely honest,
if you didn't do those things, would you be successful today?
I don't know.
And yeah, no, it's, and it's such a valid point.
This is a conversation we're having with friends last night at dinner.
You know, a friend asked, what would I look back and do different?
And so many things is what I want to say, right?
Hindsight's 2020, but the truth is nothing, right?
Because it took me to the next? Because it took me to the
next step and it took me to the next room and it took me to the next table and the next
conversation. And it made whatever decisions I made, allowed me to, for me to get that,
land that customer, to me to land that partnership and that investor. And I do think that it
is important not to lose yourself though. And so although I was showing up at the steakhouse
and at the things like,
I would invite my counterparts to come like,
to see it from a different lens.
And I'm always like,
every one of like my investors mentors,
like they're all probably rolling their eyes laughing at,
like this is like typical scenario conversation,
is like how they can be better for us too.
I'm like, okay, next time instead.
And so the next year at that conference,
my wonderful investor, and, next time instead.
with other CEOs and get business done, right? And so I ended up just riding the golf carts, right?
And I ended up riding the golf carts
and we had such a great time.
And like by the end of it, you know,
next year they're like, what should we do different?
And I'm like, nothing, just invite me to the golf course.
Right? And maybe I'm not going to golf
and maybe I may leave early from a dinner.
Maybe I won't stay overnight at a conference
because I've got my kids to go like, to get home to.
But I want to be invited to that.
Like, I want to just be part of the thing.
I don't want to have this curated extra experience.
And so I'd always invite them.
They would invite me back into that conversation
of what they could do better.
But I don't think if I voiced it, they wouldn't have known.
If I just went to the spa, it didn't say anything.
And so I do think that that's where I was,
the early parts of having your voice
heard is important.
You can't make change if you're not going to express those ideas.
So you have to get comfortable and it's hard.
I know it's so much easier said.
It takes courage to do that.
But I think if you do it in a way that's kind and if you do it in a way that's loving and
if you do it in a way that's empathetic and it's not belittling and it's not, oh, you made me feel, it's not you language.
I'm really excited for this,
and I see a lot of good in people,
and even though I faced a lot of the things that I faced,
I knew that very, very few times
where I felt that I was malicious or intentional,
but most of the time it wasn't.
They just don't know.
It just don't know.
And so I think if you invite people into a proactive conversation, a co-created conversation,
that change can happen that way.
And that's how I was able to navigate the Boys Club once, doing it again.
I mean, it still has the Fintech spaces. It's different. But I do think that
we can co-create a more beautiful experience for all. Hi, I'm Bob Pitman, Chairman and CEO of
iHeartMedia. I'm excited to share my podcast with you, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers
of Marketing. Make sure to check out my recent episode with legendary musician and philanthropist,
Jewel. I didn't want a million dollars.
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I'm so sick of hearing men talk about women's basketball.
If only there were a professional WNBA player with her own podcast I could listen to.
You rang?
Hey, this is Lexi Brown, WNBA player and professional yapper.
And this is Mariah Rose.
You may know me from spilling the tea on Hoops for Hotties on TikTok.
And we've got a new podcast, Full Circle.
Every Wednesday, we're catching you up
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And not just in the WNBA, but with Athletes Unlimited,
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We've got you with analysis, inside stories,
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I know you guys have seen a lot of former
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We want to share all of the women's basketball stories
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Tune in to Full Circle,
an iHeart Women's sports production
in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
You can find us on the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Have you ever wished for a change but weren't sure how to make it? Maybe you feel stuck
in a job or a place or a relationship. Join me, Emily Tish Sussman, over on She Pivots,
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Every Wednesday, I sit down with women like Kamala Harris,
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This March, we are continuing to uplift women
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I fell in love with public policy
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or wherever you get your podcasts.
Yeah, no, thank you for being so honest as well,
because I think it's, like you said, it's been 10 years
and it still hasn't changed drastically.
It's changed a little bit,
but your ability to deal with it positively
and proactively has helped you move along.
And one of the things you did, and you said to me,
like, you built your business with family.
Yeah.
And that's rare, I feel, as well, in this day and age.
I feel like there were companies like a century ago,
which were family-built, family-owned.
They passed it down through generations.
Family-built businesses are more rare now.
And I've even had a lot of friends and family members
that I know that have built things with their friends,
investments, companies.
And at some point, there's a break-off.
There's a breakdown in communication,
there's potentially distance that's created and I think people can sometimes be quite
naive and trusting when they go into family based or friend based businesses and at some
point the friendship kind of changes because of money, the family falls out over money,
generally money seems to be this force
that has the power to break some of the deepest bonds.
As someone who's built a successful relationship
with their family and built a business at the same time,
what three warnings or cautions or clarifications
would you put into place for anyone listening right now
thinking I'm starting this with my friend,
I'm super excited, we love each other, we don't need anything,
contracts, forget it.
Or someone with their family is just like,
of course I trust my family.
What would you be three things you'd lay out for them
to say, here's how to get it right, and here's what we did?
It's definitely very rare.
So I, and I've seen it with my own friends firsthand
of what you're saying is so true,
because you go into it with that level of trust,
that excitement.
With my brother, when he came into the business
a year after, almost a year after,
he was supporting me on a backend.
And then when things really started taking off,
I needed help, I needed to grow,
and he was an expert in different things.
And I think advice number one is don't just partner up
for the sake of partnering up.
We definitely had so much trust.
I mean, we have the same DNA, right?
Like there's like same value system.
Like there's nobody in my life that has gone through
almost every life experience with me than my brother.
Like that's such a cool bond as siblings
that you get to have, right?
They really understand all of the craziness,
the family stuff.
They're really your, you're really the other half of you
in a different way in the primary part of your growing up.
So we had so much trust, everything that made me great,
made him great, everything that would be things
that maybe messed us up, messed him up, right?
So we had this true bond,
but he was different in his skillset.
I had really strong strengths and people and
brand and marketing and just the ability to inspire and get talent and drive. He was so
great at sales and operations and that was a skill set that I needed. And so I think
advice number one is stay in your lanes. So I think what happens is like when you're in each other's lanes, that's where it becomes
tough.
So having clear roles and responsibilities, and then that's where the trust component
comes in.
Because if you really trust each other, then you have to let them run it the way that they
would run it.
And they have to trust you in running that lane the way that you're going to run it.
And so I think that that's number one is to divide and conquer. Number two, you brought up money. Money is, it's tough, right? And so in it,
that is truly what has I've seen broken families and relationships. And one thing that, you know,
when Sal came on board, I could have maybe offered a different equity stake, or when we were like
trying to figure
out how we're going to do this.
It was 50-50.
It wasn't even a question.
Even though I started the company first, whatever it was, but I knew that I never wanted money
to be our relationship is the most important thing.
I never wanted to build, like, what if the business is going to fail?
We're going to have success.
We're going to fail. I didn't know what was
gonna be the outcome but family is forever. Like I didn't want to ruin that
and so to avoid not letting money come in the way and I know this isn't
practical for many people but that was the reason why it was 50-50. I got 2%
more because I'm two years older.
That was the deal.
This time he has 2% more to make life fair.
What that allowed, it wasn't about me feeling great or him feeling great.
We both came from a sense of partnership. And so every decision that you make, and whether that's with your friend or with your spouse or whoever you're doing, a business partner that you're
doing business with, if you guys are coming at it from this same equitable lens, then
you know that there's that extra level of trust because there isn't any other gain or
benefit for Sal or for myself. We're always coming at it for the same outcome.
And I know that's not perfect for all kinds of businesses, but it's all about value, right?
Where there's not that disconnect is when someone doesn't feel their value.
And so really sitting down and understanding the value component of it.
It's super critical.
And then just advice that it is important to talk about what happens
if it doesn't go well, right?
So to have that conversation and to have things in place to say,
if it doesn't go well, here's how we're going to solve through it.
But I think it's not just having the end in mind.
We actually never signed a contract.
So that's actually I'm giving the advice.
I never took the advice.
And I will say what did get us through it is any business partnership
Business is personal like period
It's a relationship. I mean you were the guru of
Relationship advice like it is you have to nurture this relationship. You have to spend time in this relationship
It's a relation you have to ensure that the other person is feeling seen heard valued and you've got to ensure that there's strong communication in the relationship. So Sal and I, we're siblings. We fight more
than any, like it is nonstop. Like I disagree with him a hundred times a day, a hundred
times a day. But we also make up very quickly because the way that I talk to my brother,
there's probably nobody in the world I could ever talk to. That is like, it's just how siblings work.
But we have great level of communication
and we got an incredible coach to support us.
We had almost like a therapist, a business therapist.
Because that's what this is, it's a relationship.
And so I think it's never too early,
so if you do have a partnership,
to have a third party that you can communicate,
just like couples therapy, right? That you can go to and you're like,
we're both committed to making this work,
but it's so annoying when she does this,
or it's so annoying when he does that.
And so it's not coming from a lens of me against him
and that there is like a third party there
that's been super helpful
and just building upon that communication.
So trust is super important.
And that communication, where it goes wrong
is when you start brushing it under the rug, right?
When you're like, that's where resentment forms.
Where relationships fail, business relationships,
personal relationships, it's resentment.
We don't talk about it.
We're not addressing it.
We're not finding a solution for it.
And then the next time it happens, you're like,
oh, remember that last time that that happened?
Remember that? So like all of this triangulation,
that negative conversation, I'm a huge believer.
I'm like always hard on my sleeve, always.
And so that's what's worked, just be honest
and have those conversations.
And if you need help, then get that third person involved.
But that's been what's worked really well for us.
I think there's something to be said for relationships
where you already have a deep understanding of each other.
When Radhi and I started Juni together,
which is our tea company,
it was so much about leaning into each other's strengths
and trusting each other with what we knew.
So I know that Radhi deeply understands flavor profile.
She really understands ingredients.
She knows what's good for people's health.
That's her world.
Like that's what she's dedicated her life to.
She's a nutritionist, she's a dietitian.
She has a background in that.
And so I can trust her with that.
And then I love storytelling, I love symbolism, I love aesthetics.
Like that's my world and I love the idea of how something can become a part of someone's routine.
And you know, we have a Juni for the morning and a Junie for the evening and a Junie for midday pick me up.
And I understand how people need to use products
in order to feel better.
And when there's that trust and that understanding,
now it's like, okay, we don't need to tread on each other's toes.
But we'd been together for probably like nine, ten years
when we started something together.
So there's such a deep understanding.
Whereas if we started it in year So there's such a deep understanding.
Whereas if we started it in year one,
chances are it would have been a lot more difficult.
And so I think if you are building something
with someone you know, if you know them well enough,
it's more likely to be effective as opposed to like,
oh, we just hit it off and we kind of got some chemistry
and then, you know, you don't really know them well enough.
But I wanted to ask you something,
something that I want to pivot slightly,
because I think it's something that I talk
to a lot of people about,
and I think you've nailed it,
and we kind of touched on it in our previous conversation
before we started recording.
You built a business in what is a background product, right?
In the sense of it's not consumer facing directly,
it's not something that everyone would come across.
It's not sexy.
Yeah, I call it unsexy money.
And I think it's the coolest type of money.
There's a lot of pressure these days where everyone thinks,
I have to have a social media following.
I have to build a brand that's known online.
I need a viral brand if it's going to make money.
It has to be consumer...
Like we put this weird pressure.
And I always think about, like I used to work at Accenture.
And I used to think about the amount of things
that Accenture acquired, things that Accenture worked on.
I always be like, no one's ever heard of these companies.
And there are founders here winning massively.
And I feel like this generation might be missing out
on the businesses that solve real problems
that affect millions of people behind the scenes,
that the opportunity to scale really, really fast
because we're too busy trying to grow an online following.
And so walk us through that understanding of how you encourage founders
to find their niche and build their product and think about what they're doing.
Because today it's been like,
oh well if my brand hasn't had a viral video yet,
it probably won't become big.
So walk us through that a little bit.
It's done so much good but it's ruined us, right? brand hasn't had a viral video yet, it probably won't become big. So walk us through that a little bit.
It's done so much good, but it's ruined us, right?
It's ruined us in so many ways.
We have to stop doing things for the gram.
It is our mentality of building companies, products, services,
that if it's not this, then it's not that.
And I also think that it's important for us to have a social presence
and to utilize all
these tools that we have.
So there's so much good that can come from it, but it doesn't have to be all of it.
And so I do think it's important.
There's so much opportunity out there.
Most entrepreneurs that I know of personally that have been really successful came from
a corporate position that saw something
and then they wanted to go tackle this one unique problem.
And these unsexy businesses are solving the most complex problems for us.
So we did $40 billion in payments through this ecosystem that I almost didn't start.
If I didn't build it, card present versus card not present. So Stripe was focused on digital transactions.
Square was focused on in-person transactions.
Guess what?
There was nobody bridging the gap for dentist offices
that needed both in-person and online transactions.
Boom, there was the opportunity that nobody
saw in building that tech.
And I didn't have the background.
I wasn't a coder.
I wasn't an engineer.
But I could see where the world was going.
And I think that's what entrepreneurship is.
It's the spirit of solving for problems.
It's not for show.
Success will come if you just let go of that.
And you can also have a social following
and build a great band and have the podcast
and do the things to go reach more people,
but you can solve if you just focus on solving the problem and seeing it uniquely.
And if it's one of you, you're really like, it's resonating with you because you're like,
I am that person.
I'm always finding like you're in the shower and you're like, this should be better.
This could be better, right?
You're always finding the next thing, but ideas don't make you an entrepreneur.
Execution does, right? Everybody has ideas you an entrepreneur, execution does.
Right? Everybody has ideas.
It's really about execution.
And that's the thing.
I feel like that's the thing that I saw maybe in like Sal and I growing up was like,
got to put in the work.
Even after everything that I have, I show up every single day and I work.
I put my head down at night and I asked myself, did I like give my 100 and 10?
I worked so hard still.
And it's just part of, and yes, I work smart too. So it's not that I'm not just grinding my way and being intentional, but hard work is
a huge part of it because there's no such thing as a billion dollar idea.
It's a billion dollar execution.
And to execute, it's every single day.
You just got to keep showing up.
And like that mountain, the mountain's going be there and then you're gonna climb it.
And guess what?
You're gonna get to the top
and you're gonna climb this thing.
The next day, there's another mountain
and there's another mountain.
So you've gotta love that challenge.
That's what entrepreneurship is.
I didn't build a billion dollar.
It took me 12 years to build that business,
10 years to exit that business.
It didn't happen overnight.
It happened because I just kept showing up.
It wasn't this magic formula.
People ask like, what was the secret
to the billion dollar success?
I didn't give up.
Like I just somehow kept showing up.
I can name every founders, like every journey
where we almost didn't make payroll.
I had to put my mortgage on the line.
We had to do, we didn't get the investors.
We lost the customers, but you just keep going.
And so you have to find that why to really power you through.
And for me, it was I just love to solve really big problems.
And that's why even after I was it, right, it's like here I'm back again
and in building again, it's because I see I see the problem
and I know we can solve it.
This is Questlove.
And every year we do special programming for Black History Month.
So the team and I compiled some clips from the show that are worth revisiting.
In part one of the celebration of Black History Month, we're listening Back to Moments with
Chris Rock.
The greatest comedians in America are in to be black because you had to work these two
systems in a world that everybody else has to work on.
Listen to Questlove Supreme on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
Follow Questlove Supreme and start listening on the free iHeart
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You are cordially invited to the hottest party
in professional sports.
I'm Tisha Olin, former golf professional
and the host of Welcome to the Party,
your newest obsession about the wonderful world that is women's golf.
Featuring interviews with top players on tour,
like LPGA superstar Angel Yin.
I really just sat myself down at the end of 2022
and I was like, look, either we make it or we quit.
Expert tips to help improve your swing
and the craziest stories to come out
of your friendly neighborhood country club.
The drinks were flowing. Okay. They were like, torquing all over the place, vaping.
They're shotgunning. They're pissing in the middle of the course.
Women's golf is a wild ride, full of big personalities, remarkable athleticism,
fierce competition, and a generation of women hell-bent on shanking that glass ceiling.
Welcome to the Party with Tisha Allen is an iHeart Woman Sports Production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
Listen to Welcome to the Party. That's P-A-R-T-E-E on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
It was a moment that should have broken me, but just because of how I was raised and my
bullishness and arrogance to want to be great hardened me.
It gave me a platform to be so singularly focused on greatness.
We all have moments like this.
Something happens that's supposed to break us.
But it's in these moments that we discover what we're really made of.
I promise you, if anyone knows this, it's me.
I'm Ashlyn Harris, two-time Women's World Cup champion and goalkeeper
for the U.S. Women's National Team.
In my new podcast, Wide Open, I'll sit down with trailblazers from sports,
music, fashion, entertainment, and politics to explore their toughest moments and the incredible
comebacks that followed. Listen to Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, an iHeart women's sports
production on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Yeah, I think you're the right person to ask this question to because you talked about
working hard and working smart, but what was the mindset shift in building a million dollar
business, a hundred million and then getting to a billion?
Like what changed?
Because I think there may be people listening who've like built the million and they're
like, I want to get to 10 or a hundred.
I don't know what's, what do I need to do differently?
Because I think at every level,
there's a different mindset,
a different type of work that's required.
And often we don't talk about that enough.
And so you keep doing the same thing again and again,
expecting a different result,
as Einstein said, is insanity.
What was different?
What did you find that you had to up level
to go from one to a hundred, a hundred to a billion?
You're brilliant because everything has to change.
It's completely different.
Going from your zero to six figures,
getting that validation of your,
it's a completely different journey from zero to six.
From six to seven, it's a completely different journey
and everything breaks and it's supposed to break.
Going from seven to eight figures in revenue,
it's gonna break again.
Your systems are gonna break, people are gonna break, it's gonna break because it from seven to eight figures in revenue, it's going to break again. Your systems are going to break. People are going to break.
It's going to break because it's supposed to. Once you get, you know,
you get things right or you think you get these things right,
if you're doing what you've set out to do, which is go get more customers,
go get more revenue, there's pressure on that system.
And then you've got to recalibrate. You've got to recalibrate the tools.
You got to recalibrate the next level of scale.
And so it is supposed to break.
But the one thing that's not different, if I look back, so we had to change our mentality
on growth, we had to get new technology.
Scale is, it's not simple, but if I were to boil it down, it comes to three things.
It's people, process, and profit.
You've got to scale your people, you've got to scale your process, and you've got to scale
your profit.
Most companies that go beyond that market validation of million in revenue and you're
trying to get to the, you know, or the hundred million in value, they have multiple lines
of revenue.
And so you're thinking outside of the box.
So once we were acquiring small businesses, we've shifted to an enterprise strategy.
Now I'm building again, we're selling directly to the banks, we're going directly to enterprise
first because that was the one to many that I, it took me seven years to unlock that next.
And then I'm going to go to small businesses.
So you have to be able to tap into that scale of people, process, and profit.
But the one thing that I would say stayed exactly the same, and it was so important
for me, I wanted to be the one to see the company through to exit.
And I worked so hard, being over prepared over all the things so that
I could be the best CEO that I could be. I put so much intentionality behind working
really hard to be the best leader that I could. And the thing that carried me through that
was exactly the same was our values in the company. I think we hired the right people.
We fired the right people, and those decisions are
hard and our culture was really built on the value system.
I have one team tattooed here on my arm.
It comes from that, that meets me and my brother.
We're one team.
We're one team, one dream.
That's how it's been since we grew up.
That's what I wanted our team environment to be like. And so building that culture, the DNA value system,
and those core values, those don't change.
Those evolve, but that needs to stay grounded
and the same as you're scaling.
Then you just shift into, those are just like,
it's just the next playbook.
It's a different heart at the next level,
but you can solve it.
And you can find people to solve it.
And then at that next level, but you can solve it and you can find people to solve it.
And then at that next stage, we had amazing leaders at the $100 million mark.
And when I started the company, the name of the company was Fat Merchant, by the way,
because I was 25.
It was fun and we were disrupting the industry, but I knew that Fat Merchant was a $100 million
company.
Stacks was a billion dollar company.
And I had to get comfortable,
even though it was my, to make those pivots,
to make those changes.
And so you've got to see where it's going
and you've got to be willing to just throw it away
and to start again at that, you know, to bring in,
we had to bring in new leaders.
That's hard, change is hard for organizations.
And so you've got to go build and to be willing to,
willing to change, it's supposed to break,
so get comfortable with it breaking.
And you just get better.
It doesn't get easier, but you get better.
But as long as everybody that's coming in through that door
has that same, that value principle,
and that's something that,
I think it's the most important thing.
I was so tired of hearing my entire career,
Senira, you take things too personally.
Oh, wow.
And I do, because it is personal. It's the most
personal thing I spend. I had this company before I even had my children. It's my first baby.
Right? Like I give that much energy and love even for for work, right? Those that are in the
workforce. Like you spend more time at work than you do anywhere else. It is personal. You don't
leave yourself at the door before you show up on Zoom.
Or you shouldn't be expected to.
And I think that we can create,
and I have this vision of a world in,
a working world where we do bring the human first.
And we've, we had the most tremendous leadership and people,
and it's been so amazing to be able to build again with that same
value principle and it's just come it's the first component of it and who like
you are the company you keep literally you are the company you keep and so
that DNA is the most important so don't change that has to be reflective of your
value system and then the rest is just a playbook. I really appreciate your highlighting of just
how many challenges there are to solve
and how it's actually normal for things to break
every time you upgrade and up level.
And by the way, this includes the team that's working too.
Like I look at, I couldn't do anything without my team.
It just wouldn't be possible.
And the people process profit point is so brilliantly laid out
for anyone who's listening right now.
Like I think those three things are so pivotal in an organization.
And people being able to constantly solve after a break,
that resilience and grit that's required by the whole team,
not just by the leader, by the whole team.
That's so pivotal.
And I was going to ask you, because I'm listening to you now
and I'm thinking there's probably at least like,
I reckon you have a minimum of a hundred stories a year
of things going wrong.
And I was going to ask you,
what was your darkest day as an entrepreneur?
Like what was the toughest day that you remember and how did it feel
and how did you deal with it?
Surprisingly, my toughest days were actually
after I achieved the billion dollar value.
I sold the company twice, which is also
very of an interesting journey.
And I did the things that I wanted to do for my team.
So I carried that, my team with me.
We made record breaking success for our investors,
for our team, all the things. And then the next year, I got distracted. As I mentioned,
I was chasing something that I didn't know that I wanted. And so it was like, boom, it was $220
million, I think was the 2020 valuation and exit where we cashed 70% out of the company. So whoever
owned shares, everybody made money.
It was, and it wasn't just about the financial.
It was meaningful in a sense of like,
when you get to exit something,
when you get to like take it to completion,
it feels so good.
Like it was just incredible.
And then got heads down because it was now what's next.
It's let's keep growing.
Let's get it to the billion.
Let's IPO, let's go, you know, do what's next. And I got heads down again in 18 months just building and
grinding and building and grinding. The only things in my life were my company and my family.
Like that was all it was. My health was deteriorating. I was at the worst, worst health. And I actually
had never gone to a doctor because I think women can relate to this.
My OB was my doctor because I was having babies in between and Faisal and I were planning
a family and that was it.
So for five years, my only doctor was my OB and I had to go to the doctor because it's
not the most prideful thing I can say, but we had to get key man life insurance before
our series D's.
We had to do these insurance, which means that I had to be tested if I was healthy and what my insurance
policy as a CEO was, I went to the doctor because I was required to for work. And I
got my report card back, which was my health report. And I was quite literally like a 57
year old man, like I actually became the pale male Stale CEO. I literally became him. My health was,
my cholesterol, my cortisol, everything was like I didn't even know. I had no clue.
I had lost my father the year before and it was just hard. It was like, what am I doing this for?
We had our Series D coming up and it's brutal. Like
going through some of these fundraising, like with big bankers and investment bankers, I
was on the road. I had to do 40 plus fireside chats with the most incredible, you know,
large private equities that like in finance, you like, you know, you have, you're from
a center like you dream of like being in front of like the Black Rocks and the KKRs and like,
it was so fun and exhilarating in a different way, but it was hard.
I was on the road and we accomplished what we set out to do, was to go close the Series
Z, bring in other minority investors.
We were 100 plus million in revenue.
It wasn't even a fictitious value.
It wasn't a value based on like, oh, here's this tech value multiple. We had 100 plus million in revenue and we closed the round 1.1 billion, everything I'd
ever dreamed of.
We're an Orlando-based company, which is a huge deal.
We're the first unicorn out of Orlando, out of Florida.
So many big moments.
It was a big milestone to celebrate.
So we had this huge...
The mayor's, everything's there, all of this excitement around this
milestone, around this series, either on this valuation and around this exit.
When the party was over, it happened so fast.
It was two weeks of all of this, and I was back to work.
I went to my next board meeting and I was like, here's the next, now it's two billion.
It was the first time that I was like,
do I actually want to go do it again?
And I felt the most emptiest I had ever,
the loneliest I had ever felt.
And it's because what happens when you aim for the moon,
but you actually land?
I have no goal.
I did everything that I wanted to do.
And so I did what most typical tech founders do
is I took a sabbatical, took my family to do. And so I did what most typical tech founders do is I took a sabbatical, took
my family to Europe. And it was really just to spend time with myself and to really ask
myself the hard questions of what is it that I want to do next. And then, you know, we
had this big plan laid out for the next transaction or maybe going to, you know, IPO. We had three
acquisitions at that time. And as like a learning, I get really excited about just learning.
I'm like, I want to do something that I haven't done.
Going public with something that was just on the checklist, but I came back and decided
that I was going to leave my job.
I was like, this is not for me anymore.
Also the organization was quite large.
As you can tell, I'm a people person.
My love language is quality time.
And so it was just time for me to hand over to another team that was going to take it
from that billion to two or to the next milestone and to the next level.
That was when the transition really began.
And I've spent my entire adulthood building this.
My work was my worth. It was my only identity.
It was so hard to shed what was next. That was it. That was the toughest moment. It was
the hardest decision. I had many people think that that was the craziest thing to leave
at that time. I left a lot of equity on the table. I'm still a huge, I love this company.
I'm a big shareholder. It's always going to be part of my story. I'm always
going to be the founder of Stacks, but I had more I wanted to do. And impact was an important part
of it and taking care of myself and getting to know myself. And I lost a decade. And I wouldn't
change it like we talked about. I wouldn't go back and change it. It's
literally given us the most incredible life. It's given me all of these opportunities.
I would do it over again every single day. But now I just want to be a lot more intentional.
And I get to come from a place of where I get to build again. And it's not about freedom
of dollar anymore. It's about freedom of impact. And I get to use my time and my resources and my connections and the network and to go build something incredible. And I thought
maybe I'd retire right after, right? So I was like, okay, maybe I'm going to come off. I've got the
podcast. I love meeting amazing women and supporting female founders. But if I turn that into work,
it would lose its magic. And so after a couple months, and this is where serial entrepreneurship kicks in, and
now I get it, you get the next idea.
And then you can't eat, breathe, sleep, think about it in the shower.
And that's how it happened.
And we got the team back together.
And we're going to go do it again because I'm 37 years old.
And what else am I going to do with my life? And so I'm gonna, I mean, I go build,
but this time I think I get to build with more confidence.
I get to build with a different network.
I get to build without having the dollar in mind
or having that pressure.
And I get to take a different kind of risk.
And I'm really excited about the Sinera 2.0.
Dr. Joy here, you may know me from Therapy for Black Girls, where we're celebrating 400
episodes of the podcast. That's a whole lot of girl me too moments. For years, we've had deep,
thoughtful and inspiring conversations about black women's mental health. And now we're
celebrating this milestone in a big way. In this special episode, Peloton yogi Chelsea Jackson Roberts shares how yoga has taught
her to stay grounded and present while balancing motherhood and self-care.
I can't control my partner.
I can't control my child.
I can't control anyone outside the way that I govern myself in this world.
And the celebration doesn't stop there.
We'll continue this milestone with Dr. Lauren Mims, who joins me to discuss the powerful
yet sometimes challenging transition from girlhood to womanhood for Black femmes.
Together, we explore how we navigate this transformative journey with strength and grace.
Black girlhood is giggling, it's sisterhood, but it is also, I think, focusing on learning
how to cope with really difficult things that are happening.
With insights like these, this 400th episode celebration is one for the books.
Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Kristin Davis, host of the podcast Are You a Charlotte?
I'm Kristin Davis, host of the podcast Are You a Charlotte? The incredible Cynthia Nixon joins me this week for a conversation filled with memories,
lots of laughs, and even unexpected revelations and stories I didn't even know.
Like Cynthia could have been Carrie?
When I first read the script, they asked me to read for Carrie as I think they asked you
to read for Carrie.
I did not know this. Yes, they asked me to read for Carrie as I think they asked you to read for Carrie. I did not know this Yes, they asked me to read for Carrie, right?
And then I did and they were like, yeah, not so much
How that short hair came to be so I was blonde Kim was blonde Sarah was blonde
You were the only non blonde right so they came to me and they said we got too many blonde
Would you dye your hair red? Also, is she a Miranda?
People would ask me, you know, are you how are you like man? Would you dye your hair red? Also, is she a Miranda?
People would ask me, you know, are you,
how are you like Miranda?
And I would always say, we both feel confident
about our brains, but that's kind of where it ends.
You can't miss this.
Listen to Are You a Charlotte?
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to My Legacy.
I'm Martin Luther King III.
And together with my wife, Andrea Waters King, and our dear friends, Mark and Craig Kilburger,
we explore the personal journeys that shape extraordinary lives.
Each week, we'll sit down with inspiring figures like David Oyelowo, Mel Robbins, Martin Sheen,
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Billy Porter.
And their plus one, their ride or die, as they share
stories never heard before about their remarkable journey.
Listen to My Legacy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is My Legacy.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Is that scenario 2.9 now?
That's the-
I mean, it's been such an amazing journey of just getting to know myself and finding time to
really think about what's important.
And I was telling you that mantra in the beginning of I have all the time in the world.
And I'm so busy.
It's back again.
I've got all the million things, but I really do believe I have all the time in the world now.
Because I get to choose it with all the things.
I get to fill it with all the things that I love.
I took on my health head on. I'm proud to report that with all the things. I get to fill it with all the things that I love. I took on my health head on.
I'm proud to report that my health is incredible.
I'm like, everything is like, I'm the healthiest.
I've literally been since before I had kids
and it feels amazing and I feel so great inside
and have this amazing energy in a different way.
And I prioritize myself and my workouts and it used to feel like a
chore and now it's like I never thought I would be that girl that loves to work out.
And I have different, I love to walk and I love being in nature.
I've always been a spiritual person, but I lost that part of me because it's hard to
make the time, right?
It's hard to add all the things and I I've really given that like a big part,
a big bucket in my life.
And I've really filled that bucket
and found ways to just go deep and be in peace.
And I'm so much more calmer now.
Like if you ask any of my friends,
like my energy is just in a different energy.
I'm so grateful.
You know, I was talking to Faisal on the way here
and it's like we think that everything's happening to us,
right, it's so hard, it's so hard.
But when hard things happen,
you have to trust that it's happening for us.
And I really do understand that now.
I think a lot of spiritual teachers will share that,
that you have to trust, you have to trust in
that there is a better plan. And I finally get it. And now when I pray or when I look deep
and I ask and I'm like, I want this or I want to think about that or allow me these opportunities
or something better. So when things don't happen exactly the way it's because the timing
isn't right, because there's something better and you just have to trust in the power of the universe.
And I really do believe that when you're in that frequency
and it sounds like so woo, but I get it.
And I feel really grateful that I was able to take the time
to put in the work, and you've got to put in the work.
And it's hard to look deep and check your ego,
check how you're actually living your life in action.
And is that really aligning?
And I can look back and I also, we've had so many mistakes,
so many things I wanna do over on that I won't change,
but I think growth is a big part of the journey.
And I don't know what my destination is going to be.
I think this time around,
I'm not gonna just build a billion dollar business.
I'm probably gonna build, I don't know,
something even greater, but I'm not capping it.
I said just uncap it.
And I'm really excited about that.
That's so beautiful to hear.
And it's so wonderful that you were able to take lessons from the last 10 years and
shift and make changes and use this transition period to have a more
transformational journey now, because yeah, you can get so lost and broken
by something that it's hard to do it again.
And I think a big part of that, from what I've learned from you
and private conversations has been your relationship with Faiz.
You've been with him since you guys were 20.
Yes.
And, and your children as well.
And, you know, I find like women get asked this question
more than anyone.
It's like, how do you do it all?
Right?
Like, and, and it's one of those unfair questions
with the unfair pressure that falls on women.
And I wanted to ask you though, for your relationship
and your relationship with your children,
how you were telling me this earlier,
you were like, I think we're really trying to do this right
and raise great humans and, and everything else.
What have been the two most critical pieces of being in love since you were 20, while
you build this, 37 today and having two children, five and eight, that's during all of this,
right?
Like this is all happening.
We haven't even, like that's all happening.
And was it perfectly balanced?
What did balance look like?
And if you had to say here were two things that,
were the two priorities that made sure that both things stayed on track,
what would they be?
I'm so grateful for my husband and my partner.
And you know, we met so young and we built our lives together.
And so I'm like super, he's also an entrepreneur.
We're both like different personality types, but also just he's the most incredible, loving human.
You know, we have a joke in our family that it's like everybody meets Sal, my brother, and it's like everybody loves Sal.
And Sal always goes, and then they meet my sister and then everybody loves Sinira and then they meet Faisal.
And then we're like Chopliver.
Like everybody loves, it's everybody loves Raymond, but our house is everybody loves like Faisal.
So we've got a house that's just full
and it's filled with so much love.
And I think it goes back to the same things
of communication and you know, I think we,
in the beginning we talked about productivity
and we just communicate really well.
We're a team.
The value system is of a team and never in our like, we've always had to, you
know, one person's been in the driver's seat or one person's been, you know, in the back. We've
always been side by side, even if our careers are taking us in different paths. Like, I do feel like
I've had that support system in my home life with him. And that is something that I'm so grateful
for to have a partner that is not intimidated by the success or not intimidated by, like, he's my biggest cheerleader.
He's my biggest, biggest fan.
And it's that level of confidence.
I do think that I've been very fortunate to have strong men in my life.
I've never had men that, you know, I've had all strong male models who treat women with,
like, just the most amazing things that we are.
And I feel like that has been a huge part of where I don't see the world in that way. I feel
empowered because my home feels empowered. I know so many women that they have to mask their success
at home or on a date. I have so many friends that are struggling in dating life and they're so successful, they're so incredible.
And when they show up, they have to,
it feels emasculating because they have so much success
or that they're maybe earning more money
or have more accolades.
And I do think that it takes strong men
to be with strong women.
And there are strong men in this world.
I've been fortunate for that.
And the advice that I have on how we've been able
to co-partner and co-parent and do the things
is building a home with love and honesty and trust
and spending time together.
That productivity, like every Sunday we have this meeting.
So we have like my whole life has been CEO life
that I like put into our systems at home.
But we have a Sunday meeting, we call it Sunday Zoom Out.
And so my schedule is really busy.
I have to travel a lot for work.
I'm speaking at conferences.
He's got his businesses.
We're like two ships sometimes in the night.
And then we've got our kids, we've got our girls.
It's our number one priority.
And each other, like as a family unit, we're a priority.
And so on Sundays we sit down and now Mila is old enough.
She's actually like, she takes notes for us and so the kids are involved and it's like here's
the schedules for the week and here's what you know mom's up to and here's what's what
dad's up to and you know their schedules are crazy they've got tennis and soccer and piano
and they're super overachievers with a full schedule as well by their choosing by the
way so by their choosing they get to pick their activities.
Every week we sit down and we're like, okay, here's what's happening.
That in and of itself, that transparency, it's not like mom has to go to work.
We're so excited because mom is going to LA to go beyond this podcast.
Then I'll show them a clip of the podcast and they're like, oh, that's so cool.
Many times, like if I have so much travel, the kids go with me.
They have been on every stage.
They've gotten to meet the most incredible.
They got to meet Simone Biles at the Ernst & Young, the strategic growth forum.
I was speaking at strategic growth forum and I knew she was going to be there.
I brought the kids and I knew our path would coincide backstage. The girls were with me. We just try to incorporate the kids into everything
as best as we can. And it's not perfect parenting, right? They're going to miss school. They're
going to do the things, but involve them. And so on Sundays, we sit down as a family
and we're excited for each other. That takes the pressure off of like, it's not about the
schedule. It's about what are our wins for this week as a family.
And then we prioritize, okay, so if this is what's happening
and this is what's happening,
then we go into like the tacticality of it, right?
Who's doing pickup, who's doing drop off.
And I do wanna make sure, you know,
the women in the audience, especially here,
I do have help because that is, it's impossible.
It is impossible.
The weight of the things that we have to do,
ask for help, whatever you can delegate off,
even if it's the laundry, even if it's,
and if you don't have the resources, ask a friend,
ask for help, trade share, do the things,
but help is a big part of how it all works.
And so I've got my mom and we've got support
and just because I have support doesn't mean that Faisal and I aren't the ones that are
like the nucleus of it, right?
Like we fight over drop-offs.
We fight over it.
And so we just divide and conquer and the kids are involved and there really isn't perfect
balance.
I think that's what it's a myth.
You know, myth balance is bullshit.
There isn't, it's integration.
And so we've just learned to integrate.
We've made our lives out of it.
We travel so much. We make it fun. That's integration. And so we've just learned to integrate. We've made our lives out of it. We travel so much.
We make it fun.
That's how we do.
And then every week we prioritize time together for just him and I.
And that's how we've been able to really stay.
And it's not perfect.
We've had our moments through the years, like hard moments through the years.
And every time we have hard moments, it's because we've deprioritized ourselves.
We've deprioritized our relationship. And then when we don't have date nights
or just even a walk, right?
Where it's just one-on-one time and we're not connecting,
then we're annoyed at each other and we're bitter
and then everything else falls into place.
So that Sunday meeting is super, super critical
for our family and you can have it all.
Like you can, I was so tired of hearing that you can't have it all. We often hear that and many successful people say, you can can have it all. You can. I was so tired of hearing that you can't have it
all. We often hear that and many successful people say you can't have it all. I want to have it all,
but I want to define what all looks like. So for me, it's that going back to the three,
so I've got three buckets. That's it. So it's my family. It's my work. And now it's building
this company and its impact. It's the work that I get to do with women in business.
And I think that that might change.
So your buckets might evolve, but those are the buckets that I'm filling and it's not
perfect on a day to day.
So when I'm here and I'm here for work, I'm fully present here and I know everything is
taken care of.
And when I'm home, I'm fully home.
And that's why I love going into the office.
So Faze likes to work from home.
We can't work because He's always distracting me. He lives
on Kronos time. He definitely has all the time in the world. And he's just so chill. We're so
opposite. And so we work separate. I go into the office because I like to go in. I like to get my
stuff done. But then when I'm home, I'm home and everything is like, it's all for them.
So I spend, we spend quality time.
And I think that's what it is.
I think it's truly that, you know, living in the now and living in the present and just
enjoying, we can enjoy the journey today.
We don't have to wait for the milestone.
We don't have to wait for when we have this house or when we have this or when we have
that.
People waste away their lives chasing.
Waste it all away.
You have it in front of you.
Suneera, it's been such a joy talking to you today
and hearing about the incredible journey you've been on.
And I'm so excited to be your friend now
and watch the next phase and get to know you more through this part.
And we end every On Purpose episode with a final five.
Oh my goodness.
Which are the fast five.
So you have to answer every question in one word
to one sentence maximum.
Okay.
So, Suneera Madani, these are your fast five, final five.
So the first question is,
what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?
Everything isn't as good as it seems
and everything isn't as bad as it seems.
Oh, that's great advice.
Alright, question number two,
what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?
I think the worst advice I've ever received is,
it's honestly been the best advice in some way,
because it's been the underestimation of like,
that you can't, right?
Or not now.
And why not now?
Why not me?
Nice.
Question number three,
what's your freedom formula?
You know, freedom of dollar is important.
You've got to be able to have financial freedom.
It doesn't mean that you've got to have
all the money in the bank,
but financial freedom is important
so you can feel secure,
but it's freedom of time.
Like that's what we're living for.
And if you can get that freedom of time,
then hopefully you can focus on impact.
So it's freedom of impact.
So it's freedom of dollar, freedom of time,
and freedom of impact.
I love that.
Question number four, how do you avoid being lonely at the top?
You surround yourself with real friends.
You surround yourself with people who also feel just as lonely or in their fields.
And you don't have...
You have a small circle, but you have a meaningful circle.
And fifth and final question we asked this to every guest who's ever been on the show.
If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to
follow, what would it be?
The one law that I would like, the world needs to be led with
kindness.
So before you say anything shitty or nasty, or something's
about to come out of your mouth, like, or even in your own, for
your own self, just do it with love.
Like do it with extra, extra, extra, extra, extra love.
Cause if we just love on each other, if we love on ourselves, I do think that
the world would just, it would be perfect.
Oh, Sunira, I love your energy.
Ever since the moment we met, we met last year at the Baby to Baby Gala and we just
hit it off and started talking and I got to meet Faisal as well.
And so us three were hanging out and every time I meet you, I fall more in love
with your energy and aura.
And I'm just so grateful for what you're doing
for entrepreneurs all over the world.
And I hope everyone has been listening and watching.
Follow Sunira on social media, subscribe to our podcast,
watch out for what's next for their journey with Worth AI.
And Sunira, I'm truly grateful to call you a friend
and I'm really, really happy that you came and trusted us
to be on On Purpose.
And I hope everyone has been listening and watching. and trusted us to be on On Purpose.
And I hope everyone has been listening and watching.
Share your insights, the things you're going to try,
the nuggets of wisdom that Sinera shared
that resonated with you.
Share them on stories, on TikTok, on Instagram.
I'm always looking out to see what really connected
with your heart and your mind.
And I think there were so many amazing insights
that came out of today.
Sinera, thank you so much.
Thank you, Jay. The feeling is so mutual. You're came out of today. Sinera, thank you so much. Thank you, Jay.
The feeling is so mutual.
You're incredible for those that,
of course your audience knows this,
but it's hard to meet your heroes
because you don't know what they're going to be like.
And I've been a true,
I've always, the amount of podcasts that I've listened to,
the amount of Daily Jays I've heard in my career, I was almost afraid when I met you. And I told you this. I didn't know, you
know, what it was going to be like. But you were the same as what I would have imagined.
But if not better, you are just so incredible. And I wish you so much success. And the world
is rooting for you because we need more people like you rooting for us.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Zanara.
Thank you.
If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my conversation with Megan
trainer on breaking generational trauma and how to be confident from the inside out.
My therapist told me stand in the mirror naked for five minutes.
It was already tough for me to love my body.
But after the C-section scar with all the stretch marks, now I'm looking at myself like I've been hacked. But day three when I did it, I was like, you know what, her thighs
are cute. I'm Emi Olaya, host of the podcast Crumbs. For years, I had to rely on other people
to tell me my story. And what I heard wasn't good. You really f***ed last night. It felt like I lived
most of my life in a blackout. I was trapped in addiction.
I had to grab the lamp and smashed it against the walls.
And then I decided I wanted to tell my own story.
Listen to Krumz on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The hottest party in professional sports. I'm Tisha Allen, former golf professional and the host of Welcome to the Party,
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Welcome to the party with Tisha Allen is an iHeart woman's sports production
in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
Listen to Welcome to the Party.
That's P-A-R-T-E-E on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Hey y'all, it's your girl, Cheeky's and I'm back with a brand new season of your favorite
podcast, Cheeky's and Chill.
I'll be sharing even more personal stories with you guys and as always, you'll get my
exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties and more.
And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my best advice to you on episodes of Dear
Cheeky's.
It's going to be an exciting year and I hope that you can join me.
Listen to Cheeky's and Chill, season four, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.