The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 340: Liz Forkin Bohannon - How To Build Your Life Of Purpose, Passion, & Impact (Beginner's Pluck)

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com Text LEARNERS to 44222 to receive the first chapter of my new book, WELCOME TO MANAGEMENT for free. Episode #340: Liz Bohannon - co-founder and co-CEO of Sseko Designs and the author of Beginner's Pluck: Build your life of purpose, passion and impact now. Liz and the Sseko story has been featured in dozens of publications including: Vogue Magazine, Redbook Magazine, O Magazine, Inc, Fortune and others. Sseko has appeared on national broadcasts including ABC's Shark Tank and Good Morning America.  Commonalities of leaders who sustain excellence: They do work that taps into their intrinsic motivation and they know WHY they do what they do. You must drill down far to know this Vulnerable -- Look at Brene Brown.  A "truth teller." Shoshin - An openness with eagerness.  Have to have both. Why is the "Beginner's Pluck" message resonating with so many people? "I believe it, but not sure if I really do..." People (women especially) tend to doubt themselves too much. "You don't need to be extraordinary to build a life making a difference." "Passion is something you build... I learned it through telling an untrue story." Be driven by interest, and curiosity... "I'm the CEO of a for-profit fashion company." "My ego wasn't super involved.  It gave me the freedom to just do it." "I got so obsessed with the problem and finding a solution to it." "The work of an artist is to know what's inside of you.  Be solutions agnostic." "The artist creates without thinking of the audience." "The entrepreneur has to think of the audience." -->  What's the actual problem this fixes? Sit in the complexity of what it means to be a world changer. "We live in a world that is so quick to critique... Show up, do the work." How did Liz learn to run a business? She took a six week crash course on basic accounting and followed her curiosity to learn each skill as she went. Don't be caught in analysis paralysis "The thing I had connected to me was my WHY." "You don't get to know Step 7 when you're in stage 1.  That's not how it works."  Must take it a step at a time. "What do I absolutely need to figure out? The MVP - Minimum Viable Product -- Know that it's only Version 1.  Can iterate as you go. The 4 stages of Learning: Unconscious incompetent Conscious incompetent Conscious competent Unconscious competent How often am I feeling out of my league? -- You should feel this often in order to grow.

You're never going to find your passion. And actually that language, even the language is really unhelpful because it makes you feel like you are kind of a passive recipient and you might be struck one day with this information. It might fall out of the sky. You might stumble onto it. You might open the right door at the right time and it'll like jump out at you. And then once it does, you will definitely know. And the reality is that is not how passion works.

Passion is something that we build. It's an everyday thing. You can do it. You literally just have to cultivate the mentality and the mindset and then be faithful and committed to that and be willing to commit to it over time. We are opening up applications for our next learning leader circle. We only do this once per year. And think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins, episode 216. He said, Ryan, before you get too caught up in the why, in the what, you need to first be very intentional about your.

or who. Who will be your friends? Who will be your mentor? Who will you help? Who will you choose to surround yourself with? That will be the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success. And I would ask you the same question. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Do you want to be surrounded by growth-oriented leaders that are willing to push you? We've added specific curriculum and elements so that by the end of the year you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader both personally and professionally. These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. Time and again, the thing that people say they love about these groups is the relationships they're able to build with one another in a short

period of time. If you'd like to apply, go to learningleaders circle.com. That's learningleadersircle.com apply. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-2-2 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Received Mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you the opportunity to be part of my book launch team, text learners to 44222. Now on to tonight's feature leader with the great Liz Forkin Bohannon, co-founder, co-CEO of Seco designs, and the author of an incredible new book titled Beginners Pluck, Build Your Life of Purpose, Passion and Impact Now.

Liz has been featured on ABC's hit TV show, Shark Tank, and Good Morning America. Forbes listed her as a top 20 public speaker in the U.S. in Bloomberg Businessweek named Seiko as a top social enterprise. A few of the topics we discussed, why finding your passion should not be the goal and what you should do instead. Then the keys to defeating analysis paralysis. And Liz had a great story at this point in the conversation. And then the importance of having a beginner's mindset and how it will help you in building your career. Ladies and gentlemen, this one is so good with Liz Forkin Bohannon. Okay, Liz, it's so good to have you.

here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I am fascinated, as you know, by leaders who have found a way to sustain excellence over an extended period of time, not looking for one-hit wonders, but people who have been able to build something and sustain it. I'm curious, you have quite a story, which I'm really excited to get into, but from your perspective, when you look around at those people in your life who have found a way to sustain excellence, as well as some of the own habits, your own habits that you've built. What have you found to be some of the commonalities? I think that great leaders who have sustained excellence over time, always, or at least in my experience, almost always, have done the work to really tap in and understand their

intrinsic motivation and their why. they can tell you like, I need this board meeting to go well and here's why and can go so far down the rabbit trail of not just like, because I need really good insight on our Q4 revenues and I need. And then, well, why do I need that? Well, because I set this goal for the whole year. And well, why does that matter? And can drill down really, really far until they get to the point where they understand like, this is why I wake up in the morning. This is what keeps me doing the work that I'm doing. And that they've done the work to really understand that. And and they can tap into it pretty quickly in times of excitement and like things are going well and like how are we evaluating that based off of our core reason of being and why I do what I do? And then also during the difficult seasons of like why am I why am I taking on all this risk? Why am I volunteering for all of the stress and anxiety and can answer that question with their intrinsic motivation? I love that. Why um who actually or is there a person or two that immediately jumps to mind maybe you look up to them or you've studied them or they're a mentor for you to help you as you look to do the same. Are there some that immediately are front of mind? As far as other leaders that I look up to? Yes. I would say probably most top of mind right now would be Brunei Brown.

I think her thinking around vulnerability and courage and how to be a truth teller while also meeting people where they are and creating empathy and conversation and helping people tap into understanding their own perspective, where they are and where they want to go has been pretty influential to me. Liz, one of the things I love about your message is the willingness to have a beginner's mind and the value of that. And I think back to one of my favorite conversations with my friend Liz Weissman, who wrote a book called Rookie Smarts.

And she talks a lot about this as well. She's been a great mentor of mine since we've recorded a few years ago. And I was even looking up and doing a lot of research on beginners' mind and found this Zen Buddhism, quote, Shoshin. I don't know if you've heard of this or you've talked about this before. But basically Shoshin is a Zen Buddhism word for beginner's mind, which means having an attitude of openness, eagerness, lack of preconceptions when studying a subject. And I was curious to get to get your thoughts on that aspect towards having a business. beginner's mind because we're going to talk a little bit more about this. Yeah, I'm kind of thrilled that that definition that there's like a word that, I mean, I feel like the phrase beginner's pluck I would

define is very, very, very similar to the word that you just mentioned. And so the idea of having an openness, I love that it paired openness with eagerness. I think sometimes we can associate openness with like, I'm apathetic. I'm laxidaisical. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. and in our culture, like, we really value, like, know what you stand for and fight for your beliefs. And I am really adamant about having a beginner's mind isn't about just being like, I'm like, yeah, I can be convinced of anything. It's openness combined with an eagerness for what is the truest story here, an eagerness for what is the solution that is going to be most relevant and most robust and really driving forward

to discover that, but doing it with a sense of open. and curiosity. And I love what it said about a lack of preconceived notions. I mean, that is a huge part of it. It's just like, are you willing to come to the table? Are you willing to be surprised by what you find? Are you willing to ask questions that you genuinely don't know the answer to? And then actually, here's the kicker, listen to the responses of whoever that is, your employees, your customers, your market, your readers, whatever, whatever that looks like for you, a lot of people like to ask questions that they know the answers that they're going to get back. Or they'll ask them to questions, they'll ask them to people that they know will give them

the answer that they want to hear. And so, yeah, I love that definition. I would say it's very much so in line with the spirit of beginner's pluck. So beginners pluck has seemed to really strike a chord with people. And that's hard to do today, I think, Liz. As you know, you look around, it's hard to really cross that chasm. And I feel like you really have, whether it's from speaking at Global Leadership Summit and now your book being out, but seems to really have, and you're in the middle of a book tour. I'm curious from what you've been hearing from fans on your tour and from speaking, why do you think it has really resonated with people so well? I think it's resonating because I think there has been a part of people who, when they

hear the messages that we're getting in current culture about how to find your passion and how to make an impact that deep down people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe that. And then actually, my whole spirit doesn't know if I actually really believe that, you know, this messaging of especially, and I don't know if it's the same for men. I feel like for women, there's a ton of this messaging around, like, you are so smart. And you, you know, you're so much smarter than you think you are and you're above average and you have to just own it and go out and like be that in the world. And I think that leaves a lot of people being like, okay, am I? Like, am I actually above average?

Because statistically speaking, 100% of people can't be above average. You know, like that's literally math. You can't argue with that. Like most of us are kind of somewhere in the middle of the bell curve. And what that does is it makes people feel like before I can go out and do something extraordinary, I need to prove that I am extraordinary. I just came out of the womb, special above average and intellect or talent or giftedness or vision or whatever it is.

And so it's like people never get out onto the field because in the, I don't like sports. So this analogy, I'm like, I don't know, in the box and the like sidelines, whatever, wherever people hang out before they actually go out under the field. It's like you're never even making it out into the place where you're creating stuff in the world because you're spending incredibly precious time and energy. trying to convince yourself of something that may or may not be true, but frankly, it doesn't really matter. The truth of the matter is you don't need to be extraordinary to go out and to build an

extraordinary life of purpose and passion and impact. And I think that that message, frankly, is a sigh of relief for a lot of people, that it's like, oh, okay, now I can actually just shift all of that energy into being curious, being a doer, making mistakes, creating and cultivating my own mentalities and mindsets that are going to change the way that I see myself and see the world. And I think that that's a big relief for people. I think the messaging of finding your passion is really elusive and super unhelpful. And the only time that we hear it talked about is from passion gurus who have, who have quote unquote, already found theirs. You know, like they've already found the treasure and now they're just telling other people that they should do the

same without actually giving them any tools or hints or anything helpful to help them figure out how they do that. And in my book, one of the things that I say is like, hey, you're never going to find your passion. And actually that language, even the language is really unhelpful because it makes you feel like you are kind of a passive recipient and you might be struck one day with this information. It might fall out of the sky. You might stumble onto it. You might open the right door at the right time and it'll jump out at you. And then once it does, you will definitely know. And the reality is that is not how passion works. Passion is something that we build. It's an everyday thing. You can do it. You literally just have to cultivate the mentality and the mindset and then be faithful and committed to that and be willing

to commit to it over time. And so I think the difference between finding and building, finding puts you in a very passive place, the idea that you can build it. All of a sudden, you assume responsibility. You believe that you can actually be a part of that. And that's what kind of catapults us out of that wading and into the process of creating. How did you learn this? You know, I learned it through, I think, telling an untrue story. Tell me more. I think so pretty soon after I started my business, people would invite me to, like, come

speak and I was so young. I was this early 20s entrepreneur, and I was like, oh, my gosh, they're giving me a microphone and putting me on stage in front of people, and I have to, you know, and they would ask me just like, you tell people how you found your passion. And so I kind of feel like I came up with this story and it had something to do with how I was like had always been passionate about women and girls and developing economies. And it at some point kind of hit me that I was like, you know what? I just started like listening to myself and being like, is that the truest version of the story? Specifically the phrase that I would stand up on stage and say very casually.

I'd always been passionate about this thing. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And that would kind of be the backdrop for how I started saying. I one day was just kind of like, is that true? And if so, what do you mean always since college, since high school, like since grade school, since you were like in utero? Like, what is the phrase I've always been passionate about this mean? And so I really did some digging and tried to figure out when did this quote unquote passion start to emerge. And what ended up happening is I realized it never was something that just hit me out of the sky. It was literally like, oh, I was interested in

this. And then I kind of like dug into it a little bit more and like sort of learning a little bit more and sort of following leads and kind of trying to figure out like how my skill set and what I was good at could actually, you know, cross junction with what I said I cared about. And then frankly, once I thought I figured that out, I was like, went down that path and it didn't end up working out. The kind of dream place of like I had a journalism degree and I wanted, you know, I knew I could write and communicate. And I was like, okay, so I guess writing communication, this issue that I'm really passionate about, I'll be like, you know, a human rights reporter. And I'll travel the globe and write and report on these issues. And I showed up in Uganda, and that's not what happened.

No one hired me to do that. I couldn't find anybody. I couldn't find a job in that space. And so I ended up creating something completely different. I ended up building a socially conscious fashion brand that creates opportunity, economic and educational opportunity for women in developing economies and now women right here in the United States. And all of that was the process of trial and error and frankly getting to a place where I was so frustrated with my attempts to try to like find this formula of where my you know there's a frederick beatner quote and I love frederick bickner but he says something to the effect of like you need to find the place in the world where you're like your greatest desires in the world's greatest hungers meet and I think that that's a really

true perspective in hindsight but it's not great instructions for people because it's super intense and like really heavy. And I think it puts all of this pressure for you to do all of this psycho-analytical work about who you are and what the world needs. And I honestly think having a beginner's mind and a spirit that is more driven by like interest and curiosity and an openness to kind of follow leads and see where the path takes you is a lot more helpful. And so I think the more and more I dug in to kind of how I was telling my own story, the more and more I was like, ah, that's actually not super true. And I kind of felt compelled to like dig deeper and figure out what is the truest version of the story. And then once I did that, I was like, oh, my gosh,

this would be infinitely more helpful for people to tell them the actual true story of how this went down instead of the kind of like, oh, I'm now on the other side of that and kind of wrapping up my experience in a nice little bow, which I think leaves people feeling a little bit overwhelmed, hopeless, paralyzed. How does someone who doesn't seem to be particularly interested in fashion, not intending to be a designer, end up working kind of in fashion, designing a product? How does that happen? Definitely in fashion.

Yeah, I mean, I'm the CEO of a for-profit fashion brand. Like, that is what I do. So it's not even like, kind of. It's like, that's it. And you literally couldn't have paid me all the money in the world when I was in college to believe that I would be running a for-profit fashion company. I thought that fashion and business, frankly, were things that only people that were like kind of shallow and materialistic and greedy did.

The reason it happened is because with, I think without knowing it at the time, I had a beginner's mind, frankly. And I showed up and I was asking questions. and I was getting information and I was kind of piecing things together. And my ego wasn't super involved in the conversation because I had no, there was no part of me that wanted to be seen as a business person, as a entrepreneur, as a fashion designer. So the amazing thing about that is it gave me the freedom to just do it. And like I didn't care if I failed because my ego and identity wasn't tied up in that.

And I swear to you, if I would have showed up in Uganda with this idea that I was going to be someone who was going to start this successful socially conscious fashion brand, I would not have started. Because the risks of failure were so high and it was so impossible that had I thought my identity and my ego were going to be like wrapped up in that. And if that failed, you know, I would have to, that would mean I was a failure. I just, I wouldn't have done it. I would have stuck with something that I knew. But I was like, well, I came here as a journalist. And that's. didn't work out. So like, here's the problem. And the problem was girls in between high school and university not having access to educational and economic opportunity. So testing into college and not being able to afford to go. And I got so obsessed with the problem that I was like, I don't, whatever, I don't really care about the solution. Like, I don't care what it is. What I'm, what I'm obsessed with is the problem and making sure we find a solution to the problem. What that specific solution is. You know, I started a charity and then I shut that down. I started a chicken farm and then I shut that down and then started this, you know, making and selling these little sandals.

And that actually ended up working and kind of one thing led to another thing. But I have a whole chapter in my book called Find and Replace. And it's all about being more focused on problems than we are on the solutions. And I think circling all the way back to that definition of what was that word again? Shoshin. Shoshin. S-H-I-N. Okay. From Zen Buddhism. I need you to send that to me later. I'll send it to you. Yeah. But kind of the lack of preconceived notions there.

I just had the freedom to like experiment. It felt like the likelihood of being successful felt so impossible that it was like, well, might as well try because what I really care about and what's going to keep me up at night is creating a pathway for these 25 women to continue on to college. What about for the person listening and selfishly for myself who we are aiming to perhaps there's a mid-level manager who's got a side hustle going and they want to build a business out of it or there's someone like me in the process of building, you know, past the initial stages, but now in the middle, but still certainly building. So we are actually intentional

about it. I don't know, you know, there's various degrees of egos involved, depending on the person listening. But what advice do you give to that one who has kind of made that decision? Is it more be problem-based, like figuring out how to solve the problem, or I'm curious, what would you say to them? I think it depends what they are trying to do. Like, if you are, if you consider yourself an artist, I think the work of an artist is to know and understand the truth that is inside of them. And then to get that out into the world through some vehicle in a way that will move people to

see that truth. If you are an entrepreneur, I think listening to your market and understanding and being solutions agnostic is infinitely more important to building solutions, companies, initiatives, movements that are really robust and relevant and sticky. And I think a lot of people don't know if they want to be an artist or if they want to be an entrepreneur. And that is, that is a good place to spend some of your energy kind of trying to figure it out. Because the artist creates, in my mind, I think creates without considering the reception. I think the entrepreneur has to consider the reception and make sure, like, is the solution I'm creating something that people actually need? Like, I feel like so often I'm approached by entrepreneurs who are like, okay, I have this idea for this product, for this app, for this, da-da-da-da.

And they can tell you all about the solution and how it's going to work. And then when you look at them and you say, okay, what, tell me about what's the problem this is solving? Like, what's the actual felt need that this solution is going to help fix? And they can't answer you. And for that, I would say, you've definitely, you've missed the mark unless you just like want to be an artist. And you're like, I just have this vision for this thing. And if it's financially like sustainable or viable, great. But if it's not, I'll do it.

I'll do it in my spare time. I love it. It'll be a hobby. it'll be my art. In which case, I'm like, go do your thing. But just know that that's what you're doing. Like, you're creating art, not necessarily acting like an entrepreneur. What are you?

I would say, well, it's interesting because I have a couple different jobs now. I would say in my business life, I am an entrepreneur, but now I've written this book. And the book kind of toes the line, I think, a little bit more of, I went into this book feeling like there was a felt need absolutely that I was going to help people solve. But I would say a big part of it feels like if all I was doing was trying to sell books, I would have made some different decisions. And it felt really important that there were some like just really, really key truths that feel really like core to who I am and what I want to put out into the world that I wanted to put out into the world, regardless of will it be received, will it make it successful?

In fact, I think I made some specific decisions that went against maybe what my entrepreneur self would have done for the sake of art and for the truth that I like really deeply believe in. Like what? I mean, frankly, I think my willingness to kind of sit in the complexity of what it means to quote unquote be a world changer. I know. So my business, we have a direct sales model. so we sell through women who in their own communities sell the product, share the story, host events, style their friends, earn a commission based off of that. And my entrepreneur self knows that the absolute best way to grow my company is to tell a story about how if you sell a sandal,

you'll change a life and how it's super clean and it's super easy and X amount of sandals equals X amount of whatever. And that, you know, it's the super easy, shiny thing. And you can do this relatively easy thing and not ask any more questions about it. And it doesn't need to be complex and it doesn't need to be nuanced and there doesn't need to be a relationship. And just like, and I've gotten a lot of pressure my entire career to simplify our business model so many advisors who have been like, can't you just make this a one for one thing? Where's your one for one tagline? Because I think from a business perspective, it's like one for one does sell. Buy this, give one away. And I think as an entrepreneur, as a social activist, as an author, like I'm willing to sit in the complexity of actually like global extreme poverty is a lot more complicated than that.

And there isn't like a super easy, bright and shiny do this one thing, you know, and all the world's problems are going to be solved and you can pat yourself on the back. But instead saying, hey, it's actually a lot more complex than that. But that's not a reason to not do something. like weighed into the complexity because actually staying hopeful and moving forward while also holding on to the complexity of all of the things that we're dealing with. Like, are you kidding me? Like global extreme poverty, gender disparity and discrimination, gender based oppression, economic, all of it is like so complex, but saying like, I promise you if you embrace

the complexity, but don't allow it to overwhelm you, but do allow it to inform. you that there's absolute beauty in that. And that's actually probably a truer story. Like a truer story is that you are showing up and you are using your gifts and your skills and your talents to make the world a little bit better and brighter. And it's probably not perfect. Um, you know, it was just like, I just, last night, I was at a party. I was at a little fall party and I was chatting with a friend. We had just gone to like a clothing swap at our church. And so my little boy was wearing this awesome, new, bright, not new, but old yellow ring coat that he got at this. swap and I was talking to this gal. She was like, you know, I have six bags of clothes that are sitting in

our garage right now and I don't know what to do with them because, you know, my friend just told me that like goodwill isn't good because they're like making a profit off of my clothes and this and this and that. And she's like, and so they're just like sitting there. And I felt like that was such a good example of like, well, did your friend give you a suggestion? She's like, no. And we just live in this world right now where like we are so quick to critique and to say this is why they're not doing it, right? This is why this could be a better way. But I just truly believe if you are going to critique, show up with a better solution and invite us into that. And if you can't, like, work harder and think harder and when you can come up with the better way to do that, we are all ears. But I think like the

reality is what marketing wants to hear is like, oh, this is a, you know, this is the silver bullet for whatever it is. That's how you sell a book. That's how you sell a product. that's how you move anything. And I think in the book, I try to address it a lot more honestly than that in a way that probably won't sell as much. But I think that is really true. And that over the long haul will transform hearts and minds because people eventually will find out that it's complex.

And if you've sold them a bill of goods that says like, once you find your passion, you're going to feel really good about everything. And it's going to be so simple and easy and bright. Well, as soon as they face complexity, as soon as it gets really different, as soon as there is gray, then they're like, oh, well, this must be, I'm out. Like, I don't want to deal with this. If we actually start the conversation in an honest way and say, like, if you try to do anything meaningful in the world, it's going to be really difficult and there's going to be nuance and there's going to be complexity. Then when you weighed into it, you have a framework for how to deal with that

that isn't just, I got really overwhelmed. So now there's six bags in my garage that are just sitting there because I'm paralyzed. Speaking of difficulties and complexities, I was talking earlier today with a member of my leadership circles, which are essentially mastermind groups I run, Liz, and Kylie, who is one of these, she's in my group, super impressive leader, become a friend. And she said, she's a big fan of yours. So I always speak at GLS, Global Leadership Summit, as well as read your book. And she said, I would be curious to know how someone like Liz.

used her beginner's pluck to understand how to gain basic skills to operate in a business, like building a budget, reading P&L, marketing, advertising, legal requirements, because you come without having that, that could be a daunting task to anybody listening, anybody. And so I was curious, and Kylie's curious as well, how in the world did you gain the necessary skills to to put together a business and run it successfully? I think just being really curious. Like, there's not that much that you can't learn. There are a lot of books written on every subject.

There is a ton of free information on the internet. There are really early on I took like a, probably like six week course. Basically, it was like a business crash course from a local university in the city that I was living. And it just went over a lot of the basics, like basic accounting, basic legal. And frankly, a lot of it was, you know, yes, here's like the basics of a P&L, but also here are some recommendations for accountants that will give discounted services for people who went through this program. So I think one, doing the work of figuring out, what do you need to be an expert in? What can you and should you outsource like as soon as possible? And then what are the things that

you need to learn. And then once you know what you need to learn, there's so many resources. It's just a matter of like not getting a lot. Did you feel that daunting feeling? Or did you say, you know, let me just, I'm just going to figure this out. I'm going to go take a six week crash course. I'm going to, what was your process to make that leap from? Because the way you speak about it, I feel as though it didn't seem like that big of a deal to you. But I think for other people, it is. So that's, that's what I'm curious. It was a huge deal. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, I came home from Uganda having promised three women that I would pay for their university. I was broke as a joke. I was a newlywed who didn't have a job, who was unemployed. I mean, my husband and I were living off of his

very entry-level income. I was doing all kinds of side hustles, literally just to pay our bills. I was babysitting. I was like on Craigslist trolling like random gigs while I was starting to, you know, trying to start a company. So yeah, I was super. super daunted by the idea of like if you would have told my 22 year old self, you need to figure out how to build a global multi-million dollar brand that's vertically integrated with best in class manufacturing and, you know, has a network of distributors all across the United States who are selling the product. I would have given up. And I would have said, like, I'm the wrong girl for the job. Like, nope, nope, nope, nope, I got a journalism degree and some hopes

and dreams. And that's about all I have to offer. Um, But I think luckily I was just forced. I think I think the thing that I had going for me is that I was so connected to the why and I was so committed. I had made this promise to three young women that I was like, listen, I literally said to them, if you promised to make sandals for the next nine months, I promised that you will go to college next fall. So I like had a year to figure it out.

And I didn't figure out how to build a global multimillion dollar vertically integrated manufacturing fashion brand. I figured out how to sell it. enough sandals to send three women to college. And that was all I needed to do in the first year. It's still that alone, frankly, felt super daunting. But it was like nothing that I did in that first year is still relevant. None of those tactics would work 10 years into this. Like, none of what I was doing could get us to the next level. But it got me to the first level. And so I think it's really encouraging people. And a lot of what I try to do in this book is get people into that

mentality that it's like you don't get to know step seven because you're only on step one like so figure out what is what you need to do to get yourself from stage one to stage two dream about stage seven eight nine 10 but i have a whole chapter in the book that's called stop drop and how and it's all about the importance of like honoring the wow like letting ourselves just get so excited and sold out about the possibility before we like come in and say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but how? How are you going to pay for that? How are you going to do that? You don't have the talent. You don't have the resources. You don't have the expertise because I really believe that that wow vision can kind of fuel us through those times of uncertainty. And so I think it's a matter of figuring out what do I absolutely

need to figure out how to do today. So for me, it was like I got to, I literally just have to figure out how to make an MVP, a minimally viable product that I knew. I knew when I was selling those first of sandals, I was 100% positive. I would look back someday and be super embarrassed about them. They were not consistent as I wanted them to be. They didn't have the aesthetic that I wanted. They didn't have the quality that I wanted. But I knew that the only, I could spend, you know, I could just go into oblivion trying to make it perfect. But what I actually needed was to just sell several hundred pairs and like figure out a pricing strategy and see if people were interested in them and figure out how to put them on a website where people could actually go and buy them.

And I wouldn't, you couldn't pay me a million dollars to sell the sandals that I sold 10 years ago on our website today. But my gosh, those, you know, however many pairs of sandals I sold that first year, I don't know, maybe a thousand pairs of sandals like selling those and generating revenue like enabled me to then invest more in our systems, in our processes, in our quality control. And that made us a little bit better. And then we did it again. But I think sometimes the perfectionist in us can get so caught up and overwhelmed that then we

stop before we actually even start. And I think we really need to encourage people to say like dream about the end result, but work today on what is it going to take to get you from step one to step two. And you know what? A kind of crappy website, a product that isn't, you know, as perfect as you wanted it to be, as long as you're approaching those things with the spirit of knowing that they're just the one, like that you're going to iterate on it and that it's going to get better, at least gets us into the game.

Don't get stuck with analysis paralysis, as you've written about. Yes, absolutely. And so many people do. Why do we get stuck with this continuing to analyze it? How have you been able to overcome that? Well, the whole book is kind of about that. I mean, really, the 14. principles of beginners pluck are the specific kind of mentalities and mindsets to cultivate

that help launch you out of that analysis paralysis, out of that weighting and into creating. I think it has a lot to do with our ego and our identity. I think it has a lot to do with our propensity towards criticism instead of engaging and fostering a sense of curiosity. I think it has to do with our lack of willingness to want to ask for help and bring other people into our story and in kind of our American culture and ideals of, you know, being completely self-sufficient and showing up when you've checked all your boxes and crossed all your teas. And I think there's a lot of things about our culture and society that kind of perpetuate the analysis,

paralysis. And so, yeah, I think the whole story is about kind of what are the specific mentalities that you can cultivate. And it has been so fun hearing from readers, like crazy, crazy stuff that is like, I've had this idea for literally four years and I finished your book and then did something about it an hour later, you know, where it's this sense of like you just needed the like freedom and a few of the mentalities and in mindsets to kind of unlock that freedom and fire in you to go do what you were created to do. Do you hear predominantly from women or do you hear from both? Oh my gosh. I'm glad you asked me this because I, um, You need to kind of write about this or do a post about this.

I have been hearing from both. More women, definitely, but more men than I thought I would, which makes me so happy. Because I wrote this book for men and women. Now, women buy 80% of books in America. It doesn't matter. Like, we're just like, we buy many more books than men do. That seems high. Is that true?

You know, you can definitely fact check me, but that's what someone told me. No, I mean, women are definitely smarter. That's obvious. But I'm just wondering. I think in general, like women do a lot more consumer spending. In the states are better educated, more college degrees go to women. Like, yeah. So, yeah, I think women generally read more than men.

So I knew that that would happen. But then I also know that the percentage of men who read books written by women is devastatingly low. Now, and I think that there's a ton that goes into that. I think a lot of it is like gender bias that men have about like, oh, women help women. Men help women and men. You know, like I have something to learn from other men. If I'm a man, a lot of women feel like, oh, I have something to learn from women and men. And then I also think, frankly, a lot of female authors kind of perpetuate that where they're like,

oh, I'm a woman, so I'm going to write exclusively to women. And I'm not saying that there aren't topics that make sense. Like, great, write about motherhood. and market that only to women. Write about the specific challenges of women and business, if that's what you're doing. Like, great, write that to women. But I absolutely feel like, this book is just for humans.

Like, it's for anybody who wants to build a life of purpose, passion, and impact. However, it does have a very feminine name and photo on the cover. And so my fear was definitely that most men would discount it. And I have been hearing from a ton of men. And it's been really fun. So when I spoke at GLS, I will say there was like, you know, I did a signing afterwards and there was a lot of men and women. And I did have a handful of men that were like, I'm buying this for my daughter. And I was like, that's awesome.

I can't wait for you to give it to her and tell her what you thought about it. Like, you should definitely read it before you hand it off to your daughter. Read it. And if you love it, give it to her. So still working through some of that. But it has been really, really fun to see reviews and messages that I've been getting emails and Instagram from. men and what I love about it is that it just dives straight in to like here was my problem and here's the solution that I'm creating and here's how your work has helped me and like gender just doesn't

really it's just not a part of the conversation which which was definitely my hope so you will notice that in the book it's very distinctly void of a lot of the mechanisms that a lot of female authors in the space use that are very directed towards like hey sister you're going to do this you know and I'm like no um when you think about thinking about thinking about the combination or the contrast between beginners pluck having a beginner's mindset versus veteran experience. Is there a signal or a marker to tell you, you know, I've kind of got this figure out. It's time for me to be a beginner again somewhere else, meaning I need to learn something new. I'm curious, like, how does that process happen for you? Because I have to

imagine this could help me and certainly everyone listening of, all right, you've, not that you stop whatever it is that you've learned, but so you keep going, but then maybe it's time to now add to the toolbox, I guess we could say, of saying it's time to start learning something from completely from scratch to add to your repertoire of knowledge. Absolutely. Yeah, I, I talk about, and I actually don't talk about this in the book, but a lot of the book was kind of influenced by the four stages of learning. So you've got stage one, which is when you are unconsciously incompetence. So you like don't know what you don't know.

Stage two is the stage of conscious incompetence when you're like, oh my gosh, I'm in over my head. I don't know what I'm doing. Then you get to conscious competence when you're like, okay, I've got this figured out. I've done it a couple times. Still takes a lot of effort, but I can do it. And then mastery and expertise is defined as unconscious competence, where it's like you're so good at what you're doing, you could literally do it in your sleep.

And a lot of times when you look, you know, if you just Google the four stages of learning, to not make this up. It typically kind of has like a pyramid or a stair step to illustrate it. And that is typically how we believe about what we believe about our learning journey is that it's like these are stairs to be climbed. The reality is the cycles of or the stages of learning are actually a cycle. And so the work of innovative and courageous and creative leaders is to be the type of leader who can acknowledge when they've achieved mastery and success and then who instead of

kind of protecting themselves and only saying yes to stuff that they know that they can succeed in so that they can kind of protect their image of, you know, this great grand master and expert who succeeds now and everything they do because now they're an expert who consciously chooses that. And so if you're at a point in your career where there, where 80% of what you're working on, you're like, I could do this in my sleep. I would argue like now is the time. You got to dive back into the cycle of learning, which will land you in the stage of conscious and competence, which is a super uncomfortable place to be. But I think the signal for me is,

well, how often am I feeling like I'm out of my league? Like, how often am I feeling insecure? Am I like, you know, oh, I walked into the wrong room? I don't belong here. Like, I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not accomplished enough. And I think to the average person, those feelings signal to our limbic system, or, you know, lizard brain, fight or flight, either pretend like you know what you're doing and puff yourself up and make yourself look better and cooler and more accomplished than you are or run in the opposite direction. Once you have done the work of cultivating the value of having a beginner's mind, those very things that used to ignite your fight or flight are the things that make you go, yes, I did it. I'm back. Okay, I did it. I leaped out

of mastery and expertise. And to your point, it doesn't mean you stop doing those things, but it means that you decide to take on new challenges and to show up in the rooms and to follow leads that will probably have you landing in a place that is really igniting a lot of your insecurities and your imposter syndrome, that that won't go away. The difference is when you do that, now that you've decided to kind of own your beginner's pluck, now those things signal something very different to you and you're like celebrating. You're like, oh, cool, I'm back. Okay, I'm back in the cycle. Can you were, I was just thinking of a recent time I felt that way. I'm curious about like the recent time you did I was asked to co-host a workshop with someone who owns an improv place.

Okay. So they're like looking, the students are looking to me like I actually know what I'm doing. And I have never done improv in my life. And all of a sudden, not only am I doing it along with them because the teachers don't just teach, they do it too. And this three was a three day class. And I had some separate kind of breakoffs they wanted me to do. but the teachers are like, you can't just do the breakoffs, you've got to do the whole thing. And you're hosting it so you have to be a part of an act like, you know, what you're talking about.

It was, it was by far one of the most uncomfortable things in my life. Like, I'm not going to lie, like, I hated the thought of walking into the place. But I felt a little bit better walking out, you know, like I've kind of passed the threshold of doing improv and certainly not very well, but, you know, did my best and looked like an idiot. Can you think of a time when you have done this recently, where, where you were thinking, oh, my goodness, I am, I am absolutely a beginner here and it does not necessarily feel good as I'm doing it. I have two, two that are very top of mind. One would be writing this book.

Like, I've been running a company for the last 10 years. There's so much about publishing and being an author. Like, I was new at everything. And I guess once you, like, get a book deal, I feel like people just assume you know what you're doing. And, like, my understanding was literally, I remember one of my first emails for my editor. She was, like, said something about the MSS. And I literally emailed her back.

And I was like, pretend I don't know what an MSS is. And she's like, manuscript. Like, that's pretty basic. She was literally telling me about when my manuscript was due. And I, like, had no idea what she was talking about. Side note, we need to eliminate all acronyms, okay? For all the beginners out there, I've been to trainings where they use seven billion acronyms. And I just raised my hand every other second saying, can we please?

stop. Can we please stop? If we want to pet peeve number one on my list, this is a complete side note. Get rid of acronyms. Anyway, go back to your story. So yeah, I think this has entered in just like this whole, this whole process. And I have had to stop conversations, reach out to friends who are in the industry, like say, I don't understand this. Can you help me? This is my first time. Can you help me understand? And it has been, frankly, like, pretty uncomfortable. We've been doing, attempting to do, more work on diversity and inclusion in our company. And I would say that that just feels like literally every day waking up and being like, the only thing that's changing is my awareness of how incompetent I am. But what I love about that is like especially in the work of like diversity

and inclusion. That's kind of my role. The way that I lead through that is the only difference. It's like I'm not going to be an expert in that. Like I'm not now. Frankly, I probably won't ever be. I'm definitely not an expert in it based off my lived experience. So the best way that I can lead people through that isn't by being the expert. It's by showing by example how you say, wow, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that. And leaning in and saying, please tell me more about your experience and how you are feeling in this because I don't know. I don't have a context for that. I'm not seeing this in the same way that you are because I have a very different lived experience. And so You know, I was literally just invited to be on a podcast that's about diversity and inclusion.

And I emailed the lady back and I was like, okay, I have to tell you that my first instinct was just hard pass. Because I don't like, I'm in the, I am just absolutely, I have nothing to offer in this. Literally I have nothing to offer. I am in a state of absolute conscious incompetence, becoming more conscious every day of how incompetent I am. And the lady who is doing this work and doing this podcast wrote me back. And she's like, that's exactly. She was like, I think that's why I want to invite you to be on this podcast because I think that there are a lot of leaders who feel like they can't show up until they're consciously

competent or unconsciously competent. And I want to have a conversation with someone who's in the midst of just acknowledging and understanding their own unconscious incompetence. I still feel like I have nothing to offer. So TBD, if I'm actually going to do it. But I thought that her response was really meaningful, that like we have. something to offer even as leaders when we show up before we kind of have it all figured out, because what that does is it gives permission to other people to do the same.

When we're only showing up as experts and masters, the message that that says to those that we lead is like, don't open your mouth, don't show up, don't set goals, don't say you can do it until you've achieved mastery instead of there's actually really amazing work to be done down here in the land of conscious incompetence. Love it, Liz. I know you got a run to go to another book event. I just want to say thank you very much for putting your work out into the world to be judged by all. It's very hard.

And you're certainly making an impact and I'm very appreciative of it. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Yeah. So you can find out more about my company, saco designs at sacodesigns.com. So that's s-S-E-K-O-designs.com. You can learn more on our website about what it would look like for you to become a partner and join us in our mission to create community and opportunity for women across the globe while building an amazing ethical, elevated wardrobe. And then you can find me. I'm most active over on Instagram at at Liz Bohannon.

Awesome. Well, I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress. Liz, this has been fantastic. Likewise. I appreciate your commitment to being a learning leader. I think really, even like the title of your podcast is pretty in sync with what I hope is kind of the spirit of beginners' pluck, that leadership isn't about mastery or expertise exclusively. It's also about kind of being in a constant state of learning and growing and pivoting and making mistakes and making it better and all the good and juicy stuff. I saw a quote of years, courageous leaders, no mastery and competency isn't the end goal.

The goal is to constantly learn, even when you've achieved mastery. I saw that and said, Liz is going to be on my podcast. We will make it so. So thank you for following when I saw that. I said this is a perfect match. So thank you again. I know you got to run. I really appreciate it.

And talk again soon. Sounds great. Thanks. Bye. Bye. I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation with Liz. What great energy she has, especially in the middle of a massive book tour that she's on. A few of the key points that stuck out to me, taking one step at a time, going from stage one to stage two.

Not one to seven, but one to two, one foot in front of the other, creating an MVP in her case, a minimum viable product knowing this is just V1, meaning version one, we will get better. I think that's very helpful. Then the four stages of learning and regularly putting yourself in a situation to be consciously incompetent to realize you don't know what you're doing and how putting yourself in that position will help you grow and learn and develop a career. And then passion is not something you find. It's something you build. Very helpful and useful. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. I would love it if you would tell a friend or friend.

to word of mouth marketing is as good as it gets a genuine referral hey i think this one with liz fork and bohannon would be helpful for you at your current stage and life doing that continues to give me the opportunity to do what i love on a daily basis and for that i will forever be grateful thank you so much talk with you next week can't wait we are opening up applications for our next learning leader circle. We only do this once per year. And think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins episode 216. He said, Ryan, before you get too caught up in the why, in the what, you need to first be very intentional about your who. Who will be your friends? Who will be your mentor? Who will you help? Who will you choose to surround

yourself with. That will be the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success. And I would ask you the same question. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Do you want to be surrounded by growth-oriented leaders that are willing to push you? We've added specific curriculum and elements so that by the end of the year, you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader, both personally and professionally. These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. Time and again, the thing that people say they love about these groups is the relationships they're able to build with one another in a short period of time.

If you'd like to apply, go to learningleaders circle.com. That's learningleaders circle.com to apply. Okay, I know you got to go. Thank you so much. That was so good. You're really good at this. So I'm very appreciative of that. and for you having so much energy in the midst of all the stuff that you're doing.

That's awesome. Well, it feels like just a total dream and honor that I get to be this busy doing stuff that I love. So it is exhausting and energizing. Love it. All right. Well, thank you again. I'll make sure to send you a note when this goes live. All right.

Sounds great. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks. Okay. Bye. All right. Bye-bye.