The School of Greatness - 542 Your Uniqueness Is Your Power with Nilofer Merchant

Episode Date: September 27, 2017

"Good ideas can come from anyone, quite possibly from everyone." - Nilofer Merchant If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/542

This is episode number 542 with Niloufer Merchant. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Being the best is great.

You're the number one. But being unique is greater because you're the only one. That's a great anonymous quote that I wanted to kick off this episode with because it's all about stepping into your power, using your uniqueness to make an impact in your community and in your industry and your family and the world. We've got Niloufer Merchant on who is an author and top ranked TED speaker. She has personally launched more than 100 products, netting $18 billion in sales, and has held executive positions at everywhere from Fortune 500 companies like Apple and Autodesk to startups in the early days of the web. Logitech, HP, Yahoo, VMware, and many others have turned to her guidance.

And Nilofer has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, written innovation columns for Businessweek and Forbes, and you've probably seen her byline in ideas and publications like the Harvard Business Review, Wired, and Oprah, and is a main stage TED speaker. And in this episode, we cover how to understand the things that mean the most to you. Also, the two types of identities that each of us have, why each one of us has ideas worth sharing and how to spread our

message even if we don't feel like we have influence or an audience. Also, how to create safe places for teams to share their ideas and the balance between being too loud and being heard. I'm pumped about this one. It's all about, again, using your uniqueness to make an impact and make a difference in the world. Before we dive in, I want to give a shout out and a thank you to our review of the week. This is from Pastor Julio, who said, I had stopped dreaming and stopped striving for

greatness. This podcast ignited me to reach for greatness every day and to dream again. Great questions by Louis, and it's a fun podcast. So thank you so much, Pastor Julio, for leaving a review over on iTunes, and now it's easier than ever to leave a review. It used to be very challenging, but you can literally go to your podcast app on your iPhone or on any device, click on the podcast app, click on the School of Greatness, and you can just click a button. When you scroll down, you see the place to review click on the School of Greatness, and you can just click a button. When you scroll down, you see the place to review. It's very easy to leave reviews now,

guys. So make sure to go to your podcast app, leave a comment, leave a review, and get an opportunity to be the fan in the review of the week. All right, let's get into this one. It's all about making the biggest impact with your uniqueness with the one, the only, Nilofer Merchant. Welcome back and more to the School of Greatness podcast. We have Nilofer Merchant in the house. So good to see you. High fives. I'm excited you're here. We've been connecting before this. I didn't know who you were before. I can't remember if you reached out to us or your publicist or someone at the- Someone found us and connected us, right? Yes.

Yes. But I love this concept and I'm interested to learn more about it. It's all about how to make your wild ideas mighty enough to dent the world. And for me at the School of Greatness, that's what it's all about. How can we make an impact in the world in some way? So the book is called The Power of Onlyness. And make sure you guys could pick it up right now. What is this all about? What is the power of onlyness? And how can we dent the world with our ideas?

So onlyness was this term I coined back in 2011, 2012. Now remember, I'm a business wonky person, right? And I was trying to capture how innovation was changing from organizations to ideas. And if it's ideas, ideas can come from anyone, quite possibly everyone. And I was noticing that could open up an aperture and how could each of us contribute. And ideas that had happened in the past really got sorted out based on who already had power.

So we expect sometimes- It just came from the top. Right, or it came looking in a certain form factor. If you went to a certain school or worked at a certain brand and so on. And I was thinking, what if it could actually mean that all of us could actually contribute? Based on that spot in the world, only you stand and connected in a distributed world, be able to scale that idea. So onlyness is a function of that history of innovation. And then now I just spent the last four years finding the stories of people doing it, not because they were powerful, in fact, just the

opposite, and making a difference in the world. And it's really unusual across different industries and stuff. What are a couple of examples some people might be familiar with or that you really enjoy talking about? So I'll tell you a couple stories. So one was a story of Kimberly Bryant. Kimberly had graduated from Vanderbilt University as an engineer. She shows up at her second major job, which is in DuPont. She's so ridiculously excited about being an engineer. She's like, arrive.

She's finally going to get to build stuff. And her boss introduces her to her colleagues. kimberly bryant we got a twofer and what he was pointing out was that kimberly was a black woman in tech he was pointing out her otherness not her onlyness and 15 years goes by and kimberly's daughter kai is at stanford coding camp and really good gamer loves, and gets treated much the same. Just basically gets told, you know, you must be a novice based on, I don't know, something, right, that the guy presumed. And Kim sits there and ponders that and thinks, why is this not changing? And so she gathers around Kai and a bunch of her girlfriends and

builds some curriculum literally on the back of a piece of paper, borrows some old computers and stuff, and starts thinking, I'll just help these girls to code. And they'll go together and they'll help each other. And here's what happens. Other moms come and say, can I borrow that curriculum? Can I start it in the city? Can I bring more friends? And it starts to grow and grow and grow from community.

And so here's onlyness in action, right? It's this person who, if she had stayed intact and done the thing, she would never have changed anything. But because she saw something that only she saw, and she pulled on that thread, it helped her to find the community of people who cared about the same thing. And today, Kimberly Bryant and the program Black Girls Code has since trained 10,000 girls to code. Wow. Right? So there's a power of onlyness showing up in the world. Kimberly Bryant and the program Black Girls Code has since trained 10,000 girls to code. Right. So there's a power of onlyness showing up in the world, really changing an industry, changing certainly the effect for a certain group of people.

And then based on this thing that she had thought was, how could you possibly change it? Right. So thinking at first, it's not possible, but by acting on it, kind of creating that change in the world. And then Franklin Leonard is a young man. first it's not possible but by acting on it kind of creating that change in the world and then uh franklin leonard is a young man and i love the story because i'm you know we're sitting here in uh la franklin leonard started an organization called the blacklist i don't know do you know him

already why do i know that the name blacklist i want to introduce you then uh because he'd be a great person to talk to franklin with the blacklist is the movie script thing. Yes. Yes. No, I know this because I'm working with someone who has won the blacklist or is on the blacklist or something. So I'll have to tell you the story about it. So I've heard about this.

I was like, what is this blacklist thing? So now I'm going to tell you all about it. Yeah, yeah. So Franklin is really junior person in Hollywood. Like peon would be the right word at this point in his career. Not making a mark at all. Not at all, right? And in Hollywood terms, there's a big echelon, as you right word at this point in his career he's not making a mark at all not at all right and he's and in hollywood terms just you know there's a big echelon as you know from this

industry so he ends up uh one night saying gosh i keep finding the scripts that are so boring like they're not the stories of humanity they're all the stories that we've heard before and he sends a note out to 80 some people and uh and all the people he's met in his first year in Hollywood, and says, hey, I'll help you. I'm an ex-McKinsey guy. Send me scripts you've seen in the last year that haven't been put in a production that you loved, and I'll roll it all back up to you as sort of the give-get.

And people do this thing, send it back to this alias address because they don't know who it is that's asking him this question. Franklin stack ranks the top five, prints those scripts off, goes on vacation, comes back two weeks later. And again, he's just solving the problem he had, right? Let me help find better scripts for my job.

And this thing that he had started had been forwarded to him hundreds of times because nobody knew it was him that had started it. Wow. And that got a bunch of scripts that were on the dustbin pulled out, scripts that were super interesting. And here's what the shift was. Hollywood always looks for how do we make money on those scripts?

And what Franklin had done is asked a new question. And the power of community really made that question more relevant, which is what do we love? What do we love? Not because someone's telling us to love it, but because we're truly drawn to it. And then it turns out that that script has now surfaced all these beautiful new narratives from people outside of Hollywood who weren't represented here, scripts that represented this range of humanity. hear scripts that represented this range of humanity. And it wouldn't have happened if Franklin hadn't said, I want to see something different than what's being presented and actually kind of reshaped an entire industry by that action. And so onlyness, how do you have an

idea mighty enough to dent the world? It's what's even just a dent. It doesn't have to look completely gigantic. I think sometimes- It doesn't have to change the whole world. It can just be like a little dent in an industry. What's the thing you see and how do you claim it and pull that idea into the future? Because that's how all new ideas get to change the world, right? But sometimes I think the mythology that we're sold is that we have to find a big idea. And most ideas actually start really small by noticing that thing that perhaps everyone else doesn't find consequential, but you can. Right. Wow. Fascinating. How do we cultivate this in our lives? Is there a process for creating this, for making this happen? Well, the big thing is, so the first step, right, is how do you claim meaning? What is it that you find meaningful and how do you actually

claim that? Most of us don't think that way. We don't sort the world that way. Here's what we mostly sort by, right, is how do I make money? Yeah. Right. Can I make work? Can I do a job at it? And I wonder if that's a new orientation that we're all seeking, which is in first sort of saying, what job do I have, which is what passion do I have that can also lead to, you know,

that I can orient and work becomes a part of who I am, not just this thing that I do. One of the pieces of research I found in the research of onlyness was that 61% of us give up our ideas in order to belong to a group. So we're part of some community, maybe it's a job that we're in. And the rest of the people don't look and feel like us. And so we think, yeah, I kind of have this idea. But I look around at this room of people, and it doesn't look like they want that idea. And so I'll just, that's too big of a risk. Be quiet and we'll share it.

Yeah. And that's because if we have to pick in the hierarchy of stuff we're kind of triaging in our mind between our ideas, which is like a pretty high level of self-expression and belonging to a group, belonging is a more fundamental need. You remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? There's that base layer, which is like food and shelter stuff. And the middle layer is belonging before we can get to ideas. So if we're forced to pick, we have to pick belonging. But this is what's actually allowing the power of onlyness today, is now we can find the other people who care about the same things as us, right? We can create a belonging through the idea. Exactly. By saying the idea,

then it's like, oh, you're attracting a few people to create the community. It's a new organizing principle. Think about how we've mostly organized. We've thought about what organization do you belong to? 20 years ago, 30 years ago, that was the only set of choices we had. And now the organizing principle is ideas. And what is that magnet of an idea that you care about, Lewis, that I might also care about? And then together we go run that idea down the field. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Now there's lots of communities you can be a part of. What's the gym you're a part of? What's the, I don't know, dance classes you do? There's like all these micro communities that you can be a part of with these little passions, right? Right. Little passions. And it could be, you know, a lot of us have wanted to affect change, let's say on gender issues, which is a passion of mine. And of course you saw the Women's March

really mobilize a lot of people saying, yeah, you know, I really want to be counted in a way. And somebody asked me recently, what advice would I give to the Women's March people? And I said, well, I certainly wouldn't start with the notion of women because that is a demographic of identity that is not as nuanced as we need it to be to talk about that organizing principle of ideas. Andrew Solomon, the New Yorker writer, actually gave some beautiful language around this for me. He said, there are two different types of identities. The one that we normally think of, he labeled vertical identity. So the things we're born into, so that defines usually our socioeconomic status, how tall we are, our gender, our color, right? Like a whole bunch of stuff is determined by vertical identity, language, it turns out. But horizontal identity is a way

of conceiving of ourselves in terms of what matters to us. And it's that uniting factor- Like our values? Our values, our purpose, our meaning. And that can be a different way of thinking about, well, what is it I care about that, by the way, you might care about too. And then we can rally together in a way and that's what connects us. And so I think we have to step away from identities that are sort of old architectures and think about this horizontal identity as a way of reformulating. Values. It's funny because not to really go off topic here, but the topics of gender, as I was writing a book about masculinity and my personal experience as a man, I realized

that like, well, all human beings wear masks. It's not just a man thing. You know, it's not just the challenges about men. But as I was writing this, a family member of mine opened up about being gender nonconforming, who was born a female, and now they consider themselves gender nonconforming. And so we realized, well, this is just more of a human thing. It's just about humanity and about how can we all lift each other up and feel equal no matter what gender or non-gender we feel we are,

no matter what identity we feel like we are, but how can we all be equal in that place? Yeah. Seen. And knowledge seen. Yeah. Yeah. Valued for who we individually are. So, in fact, one of the first stories I wrote in the book, I didn't mean to write about myself in the book in the sense that I really thought when I started the project, I was going to share the stories of other people and make the focus there. And then at some point, a colleague of mine who used to run a CNN channel, I sent her some stuff to look at because she's really an expert on identity. And I'd said, you know, could you take a look and see what you think if I'm nailing this

identity question? And she wrote back, she goes, I feel like I know the color of their underwear. Because it was at this point, like six stories she had just read. I know everything about their underwear. And she goes, but I know nothing about yours. So what is it that's letting me know that you are walking this path with me? I thought, oh, gosh, that's pretty vulnerable. I'm not really sure I want to do it. But the opening story I shared was that I was supposed to get an arranged marriage when I was 18 years old. So raised in a very traditional Islamic household, born in India, raised in California, sort of one foot in both camps, right? Raised clearly with a Western culture around me,

but from a very traditional household. And understood that my role from the time I was basically born was to marry well. And I kind of understood my job to be that, so I didn't really question it. I mostly was then trying to also like tack on an asterisk because what I really also wanted was an education. And at one point in high school, in fact, I had applied to college, gotten into UC Berkeley and then signed the deferment form because I knew I couldn't just go without also doing this thing I needed to do, this little checkbox in my life about I'm going to get an arranged marriage. So I thought, oh, this will be fine. I'll buy myself a year and And then the arranged marriage happened. And then I'll go to college. And I had this whole plan in my head, which no one else knew. And I'm going to community college and kind of biding time while this other

stuff is being arranged. And one day I come home and all the aunties have like filled the house with food and they're celebrating because like everything's arranged. And I go to my uncle who had been negotiating and I said, hey, so- Negotiating the marriage. The marriage, yeah. and said uh so did you ask him about you know education because he knew uh that I wanted it and he goes oh no your mother would not allow me to ask this question because she really wanted to focus on what was the core thing he what she wanted out of the deal was a house for her and so couldn't ask a house for your mom yeah a house for dowry that was part part of the negotiation. Wow. Yeah, arranged marriage.

Not about what you want, but what they want. Right, because what was I being seen as? Well, I was being seen as the role of a young girl Muslim in this family. Was I being seen as Nilafer with any of her passions and interests, visions and hopes? No, right? And so here

the deal goes on. I end up doing this theatrical move of putting five books and one outfit in a box and saying I'm the product. And so you can so here the deal goes on i end up doing the theatrical move of putting uh you know five books and one outfit in a box and saying i'm the product and so you can't do the deal without me and i'm and i walk out the door thinking i'm gonna be gone for an hour or two hours before she realizes she needs to you know like buy a clue 15 years go by by the way before we really talked again and uh mom and you yeah wow. But so it's through this lens then, right, that I show up at Apple computer and at one point get asked to go to a meeting and everyone's supposed to generate ideas at this meeting. And I think that that must include me.

And so I come to the meeting already with notes and ideas and stuff. And it takes me like maybe five minutes to figure out, no, no, no. What they meant is the MBA people in this room are the people who are supposed to have ideas. You, as an admin, not supposed to have ideas. And then you go to another room and you realize, oh, in this room, the only people who are supposed to have ideas are the guys with the CEO title. Got it. Okay, in this room, right?

And I noticed throughout my career what's actually happening. Is that Apple? Yeah, it's an Apple. That's interesting. You'd think they'd be more innovative and want ideas from everyone. You know, every culture does this, right? The 61% fact is that most of us give up our ideas, not because we necessarily want to, but because of the culture we belong to. So this is a very large problem. And so here I am noticing at all these different points in my career that at any given point, people are too often seen through the lens of an ism, right?

It could be gender. It could be age, right? Really young people. How many of us have been young in our career and we had all these ideas and people were like, ah, you're too young to know, right? Yeah, yeah, of course. The ism, right? So young or even old. Now I'm noticing so much in tech.

People are like, oh, if you're over 40, you don't really have an idea anymore. I'm like, actually, you're probably just hitting your prime, right? But because we have a bunch of 29-year-olds running around in tech. So it's a fascinating thing how we screen out. And onlyness says, no, actually, no. Each and every single one of us has the ability to add value to the world. And now that we can do it in distributed networks, we can actually bypass cultural systems that have filtered us out. It's a real big opportunity.

Do you think people stop sharing their ideas because they've been turned down a couple of times and said, no, that's not a good idea, or no, we're not going to use it. So they feel like, oh, I can't keep sharing. You think that's part of it too? Some of it is definitely what you're talking about is the grit question, right? Are you showing up with enough confidence? Are you showing up with enough grit? And certainly I think that's a piece. Credibility or backing or research or whatever it is.

But power is really what's going on, right? So for some of us, that is the question. Are we asserting ourselves enough? But then there's another question, which is deeper, which is, am I allowed to have an idea here? So power turns out to be the gating factor. And power either liberates or limits ideas. So a lot of the research that's been done for the last 20, 30 years says, oh, you know, women are affected by certain things. I'll just use them as a group. And the reason they're not heard is because it's a gender issue. And it turns out every gender issue is actually a power issue. So that's where the young and gender or person of color or whatever ism that you want to kind of go through are all facing the same problem, which is, are you allowed at this table?

Do you have enough power and status? Or will we look first at the group that you belong to and say, you're not well educated or you're not well credentialed. You haven't really done that yet, right? Versus what I think a whole bunch of us just want to be seen is, listen, I have these passions and purposes. I proved it out in these different ways and I would like to serve in this way. And it's a different organizing mechanism. And I think how we're actually going to do the future of work is going to be this. How could we actually signal based on our own interests? Here's what I'm interested in. Here's things I've already done. It's more like

what 99U has enabled, right? With the portfolio model of artists being able to show, here's what I actually make, who would like to buy that. Right? Yeah. So has crowdfunding been a part of this whole movement as well, where it's like, okay, I've got an idea and if I can package it and position it and attract the right people who might feel the same way, then we can raise money for something and launch it. Right. Right. So financial pieces used to be a, could a bank choose you and now could your community choose you? Yeah. And however eccentric that idea is, if a community already exists for that idea, of course you can get it done. So it's less about brand now and more about, is the idea

a mobilizing force? And can you find that community of people for whom this serves a real need? And it's the thing that's unlocking all of our potential. Yeah. How do we come up with good ideas? I've never met anyone who doesn't come up with good ideas. Have you? Most of us have. These people have good ideas, but they don't know how to deliver the message the right way or package it or execute it. Well, we don't necessarily know. So here's the thing. All ideas are not shaped in isolation. Ideas are shaped by networks. So power and ideas are shaped by who you know. So if you're in a group full of people where you can go, can I try a crazy idea out? Can I like do a trial balloon?

You'll notice, and I'm sure from your own stories, right? You'll be like, hmm, thinking about this and somebody you'll be talking to would be like, well, what about this? Have you thought about this? Or, you know, in this marketplace of ideas, that piece sort of fits here. Have you thought about talking to so-and-so, right? It'll be your colleagues you're already in conversation with who will shape and inform and guide how good your idea becomes. So if we're in a context though, where we're kind of told we're not allowed to have ideas, maybe just because of who you are by the status of the person. First of all, you're not going to float that idea, right? Because you have no safe place. And this is probably the one lesson that all of us as just because of who you are by the status of the person. First of all, you're not going to float that idea. Right. Because you have no safe place.

And this is probably the one lesson that all of us as leaders can take away, is are we creating the right safe places for our teams to be able to say, I have a wild idea. And we can actually explore it long enough to learn from it, to decide if we even want to act on it. And if we're creating environments where everyone's going to be judged first, that's not going to be a highly creative place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the most effective way to enroll someone in your idea? Oh, that's a really good question, right? So I'm curious. So you just went through,

and I know you're working on a really interesting new book. Tell me, who was the first person you turned to that you got enrolled? In the book? Yeah. In the book process, right? Because you were actually- My agent. Yeah. And then the publisher. Okay.

But there were usually somebody else, right? Like somebody else that you were actually talking to even closer than that. I think it was my team. Right. And my team I was talking to. And I was like, is this a good idea? Is this, you know- Right.

I was more kind of like convincing them of the idea. Thank you. And then seeing if it was going to stick. Right. You're also testing out the messages. Yeah. Right. Okay.

And they're like, eh, no. Okay. If everyone says no, then I'm like, eh, well, maybe I reconsider. What is this? Right. So you've just shown me, and so this is why I just did it, because it's really, you know, it's like in the simplicity of every answer is actually the truth, right? So most of us, if we're in a context where other people won't get it, we need to go find

those people with whom we could go, hmm, I want to test out an idea. So we can now signal and seek the community we need. That's a huge opportunity in the last 20 years that we have, right? So if I care about, in fact, Alex Hillman, let me tell you a story. So Alex Hillman was in Philadelphia feeling super, super lonely, guy basically eating takeout over his computer as he tells me this story. And feels like as a web developer, he couldn't find anyone else who is this combination of geeky, young maker type person. He felt like Philadelphia was full of sort of old tech, not new tech. And so he's going home every night, eating takeout instead of actually being with colleagues and thinking, I should go get a job somewhere else, right in the city. Like he was

thinking Silicon Valley. And at one point though, the job falls through, the job opportunity falls through and he comes back and he thinks, maybe they're here and I'm just not looking hard enough. So he changes himself first. He changes from wearing the suits that he used to wear to work to wearing, you know, ironic t-shirts and flannel sweatshirts. And he cuffs up his sleeves and he shows his tats, which he had never done before. And he shows up to every event signaling more of who he was so he could seek out the community he was looking for.

And one by one, sort of finding someone that kind of had that same interest as him, saying, hey, would you like to get together for beer? Hey, would you like to code together in a coffee shop? And slowly but surely building up a little group. They show up almost like locusts on coffee shops after a while like five people ten people at a time and really enjoyed working together like oh my god our people we found our people and they're just feeling energized at one point he goes should we should we get our own space like and uh this thing that is now called indie hall It's one of the first co-working spaces in America.

Really? Yeah. Before WeWork, this is... Exactly. And born organically of him seeking out people who were like him. He was no longer lonely. And then I interviewed some of the people who joined in that community and said, yeah, it turns out a lot of us were looking for this thing but it took alex embodying what it was he was looking for making it safe enough for all of us to kind of emerge right community doesn't emerge until you first say this is who i am you reveal this is who i am so the

rest of the community can also reveal themselves right it's like the coming out of his shadows and they built something and i call the deputy mayor guy who had been in Philadelphia. And I go, well, how did Indy Hall affect anything else in the city? And he goes, well, actually, here's the really funny part. We wanted to serve entrepreneurs more. Philadelphia wanted to be that kind of city,

but we didn't know where they were. Right. And how would we possibly find them, right? And so here we are now, Indy Hall. There's now five co-working spaces in Philadelphia. And he says, now we know how to find them. We know how to serve them. We know what it is they need.

We know how to advocate for their interests. And so this little ripple effect of first signaling and seeking the people who are like you, in this case, using obviously tech tools of like LinkedIn and meetups and stuff, but also using the in real life moment of like, I am here. Is anyone else here? Here's my tattoos. Here's my, yeah. Yeah. Right. And so, so the thing is you have a team, Louis, where you get to work with people who already get you. When we don't already have that, we can go build it and we can go find the other people with whom we can explore the things that

we care about. That's the opportunity. What's the difference maker in getting people to execute on your ideas with you? Trust. So no one actually pulls a ball down the field unless they believe they can count on you to also be there to go throw that ball down the field. So back when I was, you know, my kid was probably like four or five, I want to say I used to go watch these soccer games, you know, just on Saturday mornings and stuff. Oh, my God, it was so painful because you know what the kids did?

They just, you know, like hurtled around the ball, right, five-year-olds. And the ball could go anywhere. It didn't matter. And all the kids would just be surrounding the ball. Whether or not they couldn't make a goal because they didn't understand how to play position. the ball, whether or not they couldn't make a goal because they didn't understand how to play position. They didn't know, oh, if you stand over there and I kick the ball to you, then I can trust that you're going to go do this next thing. And that's sort of how we are as adults then, which is, can I trust you that if I kick the ball to you, you will do what it is I expect you to do with

that ball because I really care about that ball. I really care about that goal. But if I don't think you're going to be on my team, you're not wearing the jersey I expect you to wear, right? Then I'm not going to throw the ball to you. And I'm not going to move the ball down the field. And so trust is that thing that says, can you do it? Will you do it? And will you choose the shared goals of what I want to see done too, versus your own maybe perhaps selfish goals. And that's where this idea, right, the ball, the idea becomes the thing that we're all playing with on the field. Why did you want to spend so much time on this, four years working on this? Why is it so important for you?

I'm fascinated with the idea that so many of us are screened out. In fact, when I was writing the book, towards the very end, I sent it to one of the top management thinkers in the world and really an advisor and somebody I consider to be a friend. And he wrote me six pages of notes of like critique of what he felt I got wrong and so on. And then at the very end, he said, I really find this idea audacious, like too audacious. And the line specifically that he was critiquing was this line where I said, I believe that all 7.5 billion of us have the ability to create value in the world. The fact that society doesn't know how to tap all that capacity is our problem, but also our opportunity.

And he was really like, ugh, that's a little too wild. And as I read the sentence, I remember through his lens right over my shoulder, essentially, I remember going, maybe it is too wild. Maybe that is kind of makes me sound a little too audacious, too crazy. And I remember cutting it out. And then, like, I don't know, I was stewing on it and stewing on it. And somewhere like four o'clock in the morning or something, and you probably know this process of having written books, you kind of come back to manuscripts in different phases of sleeplessness, right, of your thinking about something. And I wrote back the line in. And I remember feeling like I was being really sneaky, like maybe he wouldn't notice or something, right? But what I was actually

doing, right, was asserting actually, no, I do believe that all of us have the ability to contribute. And the fact that we don't know how to tap everyone's capacity, that we're always looking for who has the right credentials or who has the right education or who has the right brand experience or who looks the darn way we expect them to look, instead of who is sometimes right in front of us, invisible to us because we're expecting a different packaging. I think that's the hugest opportunity there is.

And I think it's the, according to the sizing I did, it's at least a trillion dollar opportunity in the US, 4.6 trillion globally. It's an economic opportunity, but it's also a value opportunity. How do we value ourselves and create more value in the world based on that spot in the world only you stand? What do you think is the biggest challenge you've had to overcome? I think for every moment where I'm asserting that every person can add value, here I am even with this idea and this book and stuff, I have so many people say, who are you to believe that? I had a person tell me a couple years back, in fact, I turned to this guy who was really good at naming books, like unbelievably good.

And I said, because this was now for my second book, and I said, you know, I'm clearly not good because my first book was labeled terribly. And I said, could you help me? And he said, sure, absolutely. I'd be happy to help you. In fact, I've read some of your ideas. I'm happy to help. And we sat down, and this is the very first thing he said. He said, as a brown woman, the chances of you being seen in the world are next to nothing.

For your ideas to be seen, they'd have to be edgier. But if you were edgier, you'd never get seen. And so, and then he had done this long pause. And of course, a part of me in my head is sitting there thinking, please, please, please, please, please turn the direction of this conversation. And he goes, no, no, for your ideas, no, they'll never be seen in the world. And so it's interesting because people will look at me and go, well, of course, you just kind of dismissed that, right? I go, no, actually I didn't. For two, three months, I sat around and had fully embraced what is perfectly well his truth.

It could be his truth, right? But I had accepted it as a truth and adopted that lens as if somehow that limiting factor could limit the ideas I could create. And took, you know, somebody actually kind of coming by and smacking me upside the head and saying, did you realize that was a bullshit line? And for me going, oh, yeah, okay, thank you for slapping me upside my head so I can get that idea out of my head and put my own ideas back in. But to be able to assert one's worth, one's own narrative of wild ideas,

when you get so much feedback for people who are not powerful, right? For you to be able to keep asserting that some people kind of go gosh that doesn't seem like such a weird thing like of course you're going to assert your idea is powerful but for a bunch of us we're told we're actually told to our faces by people who look like they're actually advocating for our interests that no no you're not allowed and then to overcome that over and over again without becoming better or becoming whatever, that's tough. That's challenging. What do you think is the biggest thing that holds you back from making a bigger dent?

Not asking for enough help. You don't ask for enough? I always feel like there's so many people who can help. And I sometimes go, did i remember to ask or do they think that i got it together because i think a lot of people think oh nella furry you got you got going on everything's good i see you all over the internet right you're on tour i see you everywhere i've seen and i'm like you know it would really help if you pitched in here and if you figured out how to carry this idea into the world because that would matter to me and i find

myself not asking sometimes or holding back because i'm like, oh, I don't want to impose. And yet I know that person gets the idea and I would love for them to also be an advocate. So I think that's the biggest thing is I think we could all lean on our friends more and ask for help where we need it because that's what's going to help us get better. Why don't you do it enough? Yeah, you don't want to impose on other people. Like what if it's an imposition? What if you're asking too much? Yeah, yeah. I think I'm worried that I might be, yeah, drawing on too much,

drawing on the well too much. And yet every time anybody ever asks me, you know, if I'm as excited about that idea as they are, and somebody asks me to help, I'm going to be like, of course. Of course I want to help, right? And so I often just think, gosh, am I applying the same standard I would want applied to me? Yeah. Yeah.

What do you say to people who say to themselves, you know, not me or my idea is not good enough or I'm not ready for this idea to be out there? What do you say to people like that? All of us who play small, sometimes we play small because we've been taught to play small. You know, society sent us a lot of messages and I just go, you get to decide whether or not you internalize that message, right?

So I'm fascinated by linguistics and like the word responsibility and you separate out the two pieces, response and then ability and so if someone's told you that message okay what is your response that message is it to accept it or like i did it that guy right the as a brown woman you're never going to be seen is it to accept it or to go i choose a different path yeah and to act in spite of knowing anything better or different um to act on my own ideas.

And I think that's the great act. Regardless of who you are, that's the common narrative of who gets to be successful. It's not about the idea, which is essentially like the little light bulb over your head. Innovation happens when you take that seemingly wild idea and you carry it across a finish line so it joins this marketplace, changes the it joins this marketplace. Yeah. Changes the reality of that marketplace. Right. Yeah. What about, where's the line between being too loud and being heard?

Oof. So that you can finish, you know, bring across a finish line. What is that line? So I think one of the things is, who gets defined too loud? Right? One of the things I do sometimes in audiences when I'm working with a large group of people, I go, how many of you have been told you're too loud? One of the things I do sometimes in audiences when I'm working with a large group of people, I go, how many of you have been told

you're too much or too weird or too wild? And I'll keep using different adjectives and ask people to raise their hands. And then usually there'd be like 10%, 20% of the room, which still has their hands down. And I'm like, no, no, you're lying to yourself. All of us have been told that. And the question is, who's defining too much, too loud?

So is it that people are saying to you, I don't want to hear you because your voice is too shrill or whatever. And are they just people who are trying to screen you out? Then you get to decide, I get to dismiss that. I get to go find the setting where my ideas might be heard. And then in other cases, like corporate settings and stuff, one of the things I've noticed is sometimes people are holding back because they're saying, oh, they don't want to hear from me. So I used to do a ton of innovation

turnaround kind of stuff. And I'd go in with teams who had been working together for years, and I'd be like, okay, tell me all the ideas you've had. And they would tell me privately. And then I'd go, well, have you told in a large room? Has everyone surfaced these ideas? And they're like, oh, no, nobody wants to hear those ideas. And I go, okay, so what you're doing is causing the failure. Can I tell you that? You're causing the failure because you're basically saying, no one wants me to say it.

When, by the way, you haven't even given them a chance to turn you down. I'm like, at least give them a shot. I said, so if you haven't made the business case and you haven't made the argument well enough and you haven't done your work, then you're being a slacker. So show up and do that work, and I will help create the setting where you can actually show it up. And then nine times out of 10, the argument actually gets a yes, right? So all I say is get it to a point where someone can reject it very cleanly.

And if they choose then not to move forward, because for whatever reason, they don't want that breakthrough idea, that's fine and hear them out. But if you haven't done the work, because for some reason you think they don't want to hear it, that's on you. Yeah, it is. Yeah, for sure. Because we all got to do the work in spite of knowing whether or not it's going to work out because none of us know that part. And so we can't limit ourselves by that. Right.

What would you say is the moment that shaped your life the most? I'm not sure if it's a moment. Moment or experience? I think it's any time people have believed in me. And I look at the stories of people in the stories of holiness, right? All the 300 stories. It's when someone believed in them enough, gave them enough room to explore and to grow. And so all those moments, in fact, like even in writing the book of holiness, it would be like, I'm thinking it's this.

And somebody would say, well, they would give me enough space for me to explore it, right? Because sometimes I don't know what it is I'm really researching or what it is I really believe. But if I can pull on the edges of it, if someone can ask me tough questions, if I can go in front of an audience and people can give me the room to get it wrong first so I can get it right later, Those are the settings and the places where I have blossomed. And anytime anyone's given me room to show up fully as myself, I think those are the places where I've thrived. Yeah, like most of us. Yeah, who's your greatest teacher then? Life.

Is there a person in your life that's taught you the most? Whether them, something they said, something they didn't say, them being there for you, them not being there for you. You know, my son is now 14 years old and he's such a good kid. So smart.

And one of the things he often says back to me is, Mom, why are you your worst critic? Why are you your worst critic? Yeah. So he will just play back to me language I'm using

to describe something, right? Like, oh, I'm failing at this or whatever. And he goes, because you know that's not going to help you learn. You know that's not going to help you ask for help. You know, and he will say back to me things that, like I've said. And he goes, why are you your worst critic? And so I think the people who are so close, who get that opportunity to be your mirror

and to help shine back to you what you believe to be true because you do know you know you do know what you need um but to shine that back to you like let me hold this space for you so you can be fully who you are right and uh and i think like he's he's a perfect example to me he just kind of pokes me back when i do it to myself he's like no no that's not. He would never let me get away with that. So no. Sure, sure.

And how's your relationship with your mom now? Yeah, kind of about the same. Yeah. How's that day you left, essentially? Wow. Because you know what's hard, right? Is for her, I failed her. Because I didn't live according to a caste, a group, an expectation. And so I did fail her.

And I think it took me a really long time to be okay with that. I did. To accept it. Yeah, to go, yeah, I did. Totally. I totally failed her. And I accept that. In her mind.

Yeah. But, I mean, if you think about, right, here's the thing. But is it your, is it, are you the one supposed to be, I mean. That's not my job on earth. Yeah. So I accept a different meaning for my job on earth than the one she wanted for me. Because I think we all get a chance to choose that destiny. I believe that, right?

That you get to choose what is the purpose that you have in your life. And if someone else gets to define that for you, and you are shaped and constrained only by what they want for you, that's not your life. That's not freedom. And so I get to choose that. And I also accept that she sees that as a failing on my part. I see that. And I accept that. You just don't talk at all? You know, we talk to the degree that I get to invite my grandson into our home and all that kind of stuff so that we all know each other.

It's not really a relationship. Yeah, right. Because a relationship exists with intimacy. Intimacy means you're willing to be shaped by that person. You're willing to

be open to that person and be vulnerable to that person, right? So we don't have that, unfortunately. Is there a way to shift people's ideas around something? Always.

Do you think there's a way to shift her ideal about your failure or success or lack of what she wanted you to be? I think the one thing about in that culture, and this is interesting, right, to grow up in different cultures. So in India, my definition of of who I was was really shaped by my gender and it was interesting to come to America and see it so shaped by my color which I was like wow whoa look I'm suddenly brown like I you know you come to America and you realize your color uh and which which is so fascinating to watch I've heard people um experience that and then I go to France and I lived there for two years and I'm, I'm colorless. Like no one looks at me through the lens of my color, which I'm like, wow,

I didn't realize that was an identity question you could put down there. I noticed people notice me more by socioeconomic class. Did I have good manners and politeness and civility? Exactly. And so it was so interesting to me that identity is such a fluid thing in that you get to carve out in your life what is that identity of both vertical, which is what you were born into, and horizontal, which is what you care about. Where do you get to live out your identity? And so I recognize that according to the vertical identity of what my mother wanted for me is not what I want for me. And the fact that she can't be happy with it, I'm totally like, well, I accept that. Right? Yeah.

for me. And the fact that she can't be happy with it, I'm totally like, well, I accept that, right? Because I think we're all put on earth to live out our own life's purpose, not for happiness, but for meaning, right? To figure out what is it I can distinctly serve the world for and with, and I got to do that. And I'm pretty sure an arranged marriage and all that just was not the highest purpose for me., yeah. Yeah. What is your purpose now? Wow. Can I get it in a sentence? So I will use my husband's words because I think sometimes it helps to get a little bit of perspective. Somewhere around this process of the book, I had written a 120,000-word manuscript.

It wasn't good. I could tell it wasn't good, but I couldn't tell what wasn't good. You know, I was sort of stuck and staring at it. And I asked if I could stop because I was like, clearly I do not have this in me and I'm failing. And you know, why? Why am I beating my head against the wall? You know? And at one point he said, you know, for about 20 years now, you've been the person going in and figuring out how to help every organization find that idea, regardless of who in the room had it, getting them to listen on it, figuring out how to use that to win in the marketplace. This is the thing you've always done. Seeing the person who was there, regardless of their title and stuff.

And here with this idea of onlyness, here you are trying to, you know, make it a bigger idea and actually develop it and understand it and so on. you can't stop besides you'll be like a nightmare to live with and you can't stop because this this is the work you're you've been called to do all your life and uh and i kind of like sat there and went and if i can use foul language right you right because he so busted me i was like oh my god what would i possibly do if it wasn't this so uh the research nearly killed me because i was so excited at getting it right and finding the social science behind getting it right so other people might follow and be able to do it and not just talk sometimes you do bullshit books right like um everyone's like oh and you can do

this and it'll be successful and actually no there's no science behind that or whatever right so i was like really working hard to get it right and tell a good story and make it something someone could act on and so on. And I was like, the burden was really high, and I'm so glad he pushed me to keep trying because it really was what I hope is my larger mission, which is helping people live out their true meaning in the world and to be seen as they distinctly are

because we each get a chance then to be valued, hold ourselves as valuable, and create more value in the world. Yeah, wow. What can people expect from this when they go through it? It's the biggest takeaway from people. Yeah, well, you can read the back jacket. There's some great words. Masterpiece, Tom Peters called it a masterpiece.

Stacey Lennon, who I know you know, called it one of the most hopeful pieces of writing. I think it gives people a roadmap for how to find their own path in the world. And a certain way of kind of thinking about how to be powerful themselves, but also how to respect every person as being powerful enough to be able to dent the world. Respect everyone's ideas. Yeah. At least listening to them.

Yeah. Give it a shot. Whether or not you execute on it or believe in it or think it's for you, at least ideas. Yeah. At least listening to them. Yeah. Give it a shot. Whether or not you execute on it or believe in it or think it's for you, at least listening. Yeah. Seeing the idea

and not just dismissing it based on the package it comes through. Right. Right. I love it. A couple questions left for you. This is called the three truths. I'm so excited.

And imagine you've said everything you want to say in the world. You've created everything. You've achieved all your dreams. You've lived the life you wanted to have. And it's the last day for you many years from now. But for whatever reason, everything you've created, all your work, your books, your videos is erased. So no one has access to it. But you have a piece of paper and a pen to write down the three things you know to be true about all your experiences. And this would be the only three

things that people would have left. That would be your message to the world. What would you say are your three truths? Each and every single one of us has value to add in the world. That's the first truth. It can be a small thing, but we all have something to add to the world, to serve. Second, it is such a gift to show up, to show our own purpose in the world, to shine that light out. And too many of us hide that light. That is the gift to bring our light to the world, our shine that light out. And too many of us hide that light. That is the gift to bring our light to the world, our distinct light. And that is really what we all need to do. Third, there is

so much possibility and abundance that comes when each of us can contribute that which only we can. This world right now is scared. I see all the news and I see underlying it a fear that we don't have enough. We need to build a wall so that somehow our jobs will be protected or we need to do whatever. And it's all fear-based. It's as if we won't have enough and we actually can create more because we have that capacity. And so there's an abundance really possible here.

Those are great. Those are great. I want to acknowledge you for a moment for your risk that you've taken and the risk of leaving and not having approval from your mom or your family to actually go shine your light. Because without doing that, I don't think you would have been able to give people permission by staying confined to what someone else wanted for you as opposed to doing it yourself. So I acknowledge you for that gift and for the mission you've been on to help so many people share their ideas. Make sure you guys get this book. It's called The Power of Onlyness.

Where can they get the book? Everywhere books are sold. And what about your site? Where can they follow you and connect online? Yeah, so I'm all over the internet, but nillofermurchant.com. So N-I-L-O-F-E-R-M-E-R-C-H-A-N-T.com. Awesome. And my final question for you is what's your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is to live your life's purpose out in the world at all times and never walk away from yourself. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

There you have it. You are unique. You have the power to make an impact. It doesn't matter the level of influence you have. You can make a difference and change in the world. Make sure to check out the full show notes at lewishouse.com slash 542 to watch the video, to check out the link for the book and all the other resources we talked about in this episode. And as always, you are a beautiful human being. Being the best is great. You're the number one, but being unique is greater because you are the only one. That's an anonymous quote that I love and I want to use more often. You have the power to make an impact. It doesn't matter if you have influence in an audience.

You can be influential by making a difference in using your uniqueness. I love you guys, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music