The Tim Ferriss Show - #288: Lessons from Bozoma Saint John -- From Spike Lee to Uber, From Ghana to Silicon Valley

Episode Date: December 27, 2017

Bozoma Saint John (@badassboz) is the Chief Brand Officer at Uber. Until June 2017, she was a marketing executive at Apple Music after joining the company in its acquisition of Beats Music.In 2016, Billboard named her Female Executive of the Year, she appeared on Fortune's 40 under 40, and Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People.Bozoma was featured in Tribe of Mentors, but this conversation covers topics that go far beyond what was covered in the book. Enjoy!This podcast is brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I've been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite NYC instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world's best instructors, or find your favorite class on demand.Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer. Visit onepeloton.com and enter the code "TIM" at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts or an incredible gift. Again, that's onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM.This podcast is also brought to you by Helix Sleep. I recently moved into a new home and needed new beds, and I purchased mattresses from Helix Sleep.It offers mattresses personalized to your preferences and sleeping style -- without costing thousands of dollars. Visit Helixsleep.com/TIM and take the simple 2-3 minute sleep quiz to get started, and Helix Sleep will build a mattress you'll love.Its customer service makes all the difference. The mattress arrives within a week, and the shipping is completely free. You can try the mattress for 100 nights, and if you're not happy, the company will pick it up and offer a full refund. To personalize your sleep experience, visit Helixsleep.com/TIM and you'll receive $50 off your custom mattress. Enjoy!***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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City while sleeping on couches. Bozema St. John, she is the chief brand officer at Uber. And until June 2017, she was a marketing executive at Apple Music after joining the company through its acquisition of Beats Music, where she was the head of global marketing. There's so much to this story. In 2016, Billboard named her executive of the year and Fortune included her in their 40 under 40 list. Fast Company has also included Bozma on its list of the 100 most creative people. There's so many details that we can dig into. You can say hi to her, Bozma St. John, B-O-Z-O-M-A, on Twitter and Instagram, at badassboz, B-O-Z. And I think I'll just keep it at that. I took so many notes in this conversation.

There's so many things that I am going to use, and I hope the same for you. So without further ado, please enjoy my wide-ranging conversation with Bozma St. John. Boz, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. You are perhaps in the last six months the most requested podcast guest by all of my friends on the internet. And I'm so glad that we finally were able to find a time to jump on the phone and have a conversation. So thank you for making the time. Yes.

Well, thank you for having me. I don't know if I should be scared about being the most requested or flattered or nervous. I don't know how to react to that. I think flattered is fine. I wouldn't say flattered is a necessity, but you certainly don't have to be scared. And plus, as far as I can tell, you don't really get very afraid of things, and we might come back to that. Yeah, we should come back to that. Yeah, we'll definitely come back to that.

And I thought that in typical Tim sort of memento nonlinear fashion, we'd actually just start with something that is as a segue from being the most requested on Twitter. So this is your pinned tweet. And I wanted to hear the background on this. So it's a quote from Nietzsche. It's you must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame. How could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes? Why is that your pin tweet?

And what does it mean to you? You know, I have always felt very much aligned to the phoenix, you know, the thought of rising from ash. That things seem to always burn, you know, burn really, really bright, like in some sort of destructive, fatalistic, extreme fashion for me. It has always been that way. When I was five, my dad was in politics in Ghana, which is where my family lived. And there was a coup d'etat, which meant that the government was overthrown by the military. And my dad, along with all of his colleagues, were thrown into political detention. You know, my mom had to escape with me, my two younger sisters, and she was pregnant with my youngest sister.

And we had to, you know, escape to Washington, D.C. for under political asylum. And, you know, even starting from there, it has always felt like, you know, crazy, dramatic things happen. And then I have to start over, you know, but the starting over is always better than whatever I came from. And so I have never been afraid of the fire, let's call it. And so when I read that, and by the way, I only read that recently. I think it was like two years ago or something. It just so struck a chord with me. I just always wanted to see it, you know, to remember it. Because even though life has sort of patterned its way with me, I want it to be able to always remember.

It's a great quote. And it seems like in some ways, this is another thing we'll come back to. And I typically don't lose track of the stuff I say that I'll come back to. So we will, we will get back to, but in some ways you had these life experiences, which resemble the phoenix rising from the ashes. And now you it seems in some capacity, you're almost seeking out experiences, where you can help the phoenix rise from the ashes, which is cool to, to certainly to watch. And I've been looking forward to this conversation for some time, but I want to rewind the clock and go back to, I suppose, and maybe there were a few locations in between, but you could tell me, from Ghana, you end up in DC. And then from that point, at least around age 12, you moved to Colorado. Is that right? Well, so I was born in Connecticut. My dad was getting his PhD or two

PhDs in ethnomusicology and anthropology. He'd come from Ghana as a Fulbright scholar. And I was born six months before he received his degrees. So right after he received them, we went back to Ghana, which then, you know, he got into politics and we had to leave when I was five. We were in the U.S. for about a year or so before both my parents wanted to move back to Africa, but we couldn't go to Ghana. So we moved to Nairobi, Kenya, and we were in Nairobi, Kenya for about two years. And then, of course, because Ghana was calling him so much, my dad decided that we should move back to Ghana. We were there for another two and a half years or so before, you know, realizing that things weren't really going to work out there. You know, politics wasn't working out for him there. And then he made the brilliant decision that we should

move to Colorado Springs, Colorado, because what more diverse place to move your four African daughters and your wife than there? Why Colorado? I've been so curious about this. Why was Colorado the decision? I love Colorado. I think it's a cool state. There's lots to do. Colorado's amazing, by the way. I'm so glad. But why Colorado? But why Colorado? There's a number of things. First, he really did like Colorado. I mean, he really loved the open spaces and the mountains. And neither of my parents are afraid of cold, which I think is a stereotype about Africans or something that like, you know, you must not go to the place cold or something. But neither of them were afraid of it.

But my dad also wanted to help out international students who were studying in the U.S. because he had been one. And there was a company or organization out there called International Students Association or International Students Association. Yeah, that's right. And they were charged with basically helping to support international students in the U.S. who are studying to get their graduate degrees. And they were based in Colorado. And so he was like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Let's just go there. I'll do that. These girls will grow up in this, you know this beautiful location. We'll be in America, they'll get a great education, and we'll just build our life here. I don't think he really was thinking about the whole diversity thing, though, when we moved there.

So what were some of the main takeaways? I mean, it sounds like taking a freshman seminar or something, but what did you gain from that experience of being in Colorado or what did you learn about yourself or others? I mean, I have read accounts, for instance, of, I guess it was your mother refusing is too strong a word, but choosing not to make pizzas for Friday nights, I suppose it was, when people would come over and instead would make traditional dishes. So, I mean, you were set in such a, well, different environment, right, compared to what you had experienced. What were some of the takeaways and learnings from that? Yeah, you know, it's so interesting because I moved around so much as a kid. The moving to Colorado wasn't really that traumatic.

I think that you would think about it and people sort of clutch their pearls and like, oh my God, you were this dark-skinned African girl who moved to very white Colorado. That must have been awful, you know? And the truth of the matter is that I had moved around a lot. I was a new kid all the time. And so that didn't bother me that much. However, I think culturally it was difficult for me because in the moving around, we'd always been in what I feel like were very international cities,

you know, places where there was a community of like, let's call them expats. Right. And so the feeling was always very cosmopolitan, you know, that people moved around. They had at least some idea of where you came from, you know, and there was some appreciation for difference. And I didn't find that at first when I got to Colorado Springs, you know, that there was not an appreciation of anything that was different from people who grew up in Colorado. And that was difficult, you know, because I wanted to, you know, fit in, obviously, I was 12. I wanted to make friends, I wanted to feel quote, unquote, normal. And, you know, now, of course, I can look back at it and be very thankful that my mom, yeah, refuse is actually a good word. Because you haven't met my mother, but there are no choices. She's refusing.

You know? So she refused to buy pizza. You know? Yeah. She would say, listen, like you go to their house, they feed you their food. They come to our house, we feed them our food. Like she, it was just, there was no argument, you know?

But also it was like things like speaking our native tongue in the house, you know? It was like, she had no problem. Again, like, you know, having my little teenage friends over and speaking to me in our native tongue oftentimes addressing them in our native tongue even though she speaks three languages you know including english very well what is what is your native tongue fonti fonti yeah it's a dialect in ghana yeah so anyway it's just you you know, she just, she, she is, has been instrumental in my, you know, sort of acceptance of even myself, you know, that there was the things that I learned from that moment were that, you know, it's okay, it really is okay to be ashamed of it, not to hide it, not to try and be something

else because it's not the norm. And that's okay. Even that simple, what seems like a simple thing has been so instrumental in my life. And even as I sit here today, that I am never afraid of being the odd man out, because I feel very comfortable in that space. Well, I think when I think of you, one of the adjectives that jumps to mind is bold. And I'm curious, I'd love to dig into where that comes from. Maybe it comes primarily from your mom. But for instance, you seem to really aggressively, and I mean that in a good way, pursue certain leadership positions, right? And that started pretty early, as I understand it. So captain of the cheerleading squad and the track team, is that right?

Yeah. You also ran for student council. Yes, I lost. Which is okay. Can't all bat a thousand. Amen. And on and bat a thousand. Amen. And on and on and on and on. So how did you develop that?

And are your sisters all that way as well? Yeah, I think it's in the genes. You know, both my parents are very bold people. Like I told you, my dad was, you know, he ran for political office. He had no problem, like, moving his family around the world, you know, making any fear that I wasn't going to be able to do something. And my parents never, they would never allow me, you know, to feel like I wasn't able to do something. And so that fearlessness or boldness or going for the big thing has been taught as well as it's my nature, you know, because those are the kind of people I come from.

So a couple of questions. What were your best events in track? Oh, I was a sprinter. So the 100, the 200, the 4x1, and the 100 hurdles were my races. I loved running. I'll definitely not do any workouts with you. Number one, I'll tear all the hamstrings. And now, what, in the case of, say, the student council, where you lost, what would your parents say to you after something like that? Yeah, I'm just, if you can recall recall or even if you yeah all right so what would they what would they say to you after something

like that it's the same thing that they say to me after anything that is that i consider a failure you know first of all again both of them very direct in in a how do i describe it it's like you know they're they're like stereotypically african you know like my dad is very harsh in the way that he speaks you know like he's like if when so for instance when i lost i came home he's like and obviously he'd been in politics right so he feels like oh you should naturally you should win you know run a campaign you win um and so i come home and he's like hey how do you go i'm gonna do the accent because yeah sure you know and how do you go i was like yeah so i didn't get it he's like didn't get what not not one position and you didn't get

president you didn't get vice president you didn't get uh assemblyman you didn't get councilman you didn't get anything, nothing at all. You know? And I'm like, uh, no, like, like no position at all. He's like, you should do it next year. Build up your audience and do it next year. You know, it was always that way. It was like, there was no time for tears. It was just like, okay, fine. Just do it next year. You know, it's like, I don't even know why like this is not this is not a question you know this is a demand it's not an option for you i don't care if you don't think you want to do it again you're gonna do it next year so did you do it next year i sure didn't i lost again and then what did he say the same thing yeah oh he always

that's the funny thing is that like i literally had to graduate from high school before he stopped harassing me about running for student council. You know, it's like I had to leave school like that. That was the only solution. You know, he would have made me run until like there was no one left to vote. You know, like he made me do it again and again. Just outlive them all so you can vote for yourself. Yeah, exactly. Completely. What about your mom? Oh, my mom, my mom is definitely more nurturing. You know, she's the one who's like, oh, well maybe, you know, we should figure out a new campaign, you know, or maybe we should make something, you know, like she's always very solution oriented as well, but in a softer way. Uh, and so she was, you know, she allowed me to sulk and feel sorry for myself, you know, and, and then, you know, make you feel, give you the pep talk, you know, to make you go back out, but also very solution oriented to say,

okay, we're going to do this again. We're just going to try some new things. Yeah. Now, now, so this is a, this is an odd segue, but we're going to go there anyway. Is it true that you brought Jay-Z to campus at one point? Oh, my gosh. Was it high school or college? Dude, it was college at Wesleyan University. That was Wesleyan, right? Yeah.

I think it was like – it had to be 1996 probably or just around that time. How does that happen? Maybe 95 because it was really early. So, yeah, so I got to college. I was pre-med. And I, although I was good in the sciences and math, the things that really made me, you know, like live or excited, you know, the things that were exciting to me were the arts,

you know, music and dance and art and all the, and writing and that kind of thing. And so my outlets were to join all of the like social clubs that would allow me to, you know, express myself in that way. And so for me, one of those places was like the, you know, the student, the committee for like African-American development, I think it was what it was called or the black student Alliance. I think in other places it's called. And one of the things we always did was, you know, fundraisers, right. Cause you needed the money to put on the show to do that.

And I joined the committee for like musical engagement. I don't even know what that means. It's a sexy name. Very, I mean, it's very professional. And so, yeah, and so we had a campus radio station. I didn't have a show, but I had all my, you know, all the friends who were doing the radio stations and who had, or who had the radio programs, radio shows,

and had the opportunity to bring other people, you know, bring people as guests to campus. And one of those guys knew Jay-Z's people. And so we were throwing, you know, like, I think it had to be like the fall, you know, the fall dance or something like that. And, you know, just talk to him about all the different options. And i remember that he had this um like a collection of cds you know it was like the what would they call back then it was like you could order them for like 99 cents do you remember i know you're talking about it was like the uh i want to say the random house clearing something rather but i'm not getting no columbia house records it was something like that where you could get like 12 cds for like a dollar or whatever.

Right, right, right. It was definitely some sort of scheme. And he had like hundreds of these things. And he was showing me like his favorites. And Jay-Z was one. And I wasn't really familiar with Jay-Z because even though, like I said, I went to high school in Colorado. I definitely swung more West Coast gangster rap than I did East Coast hip hop. And so I wasn't as familiar with Jay. But I was determined that if these set of people wanted to see an East Coast rapper, then Jay-Z was going to be the best. And so we were going to go get him. So literally, it was like phone calls. We called the management team. I don't even know how we got the phone number, to be honest with you. We called, we made a pitch. Yeah, and he came to campus. He came to

campus. And we were in the cafeteria. That's where we set up. And charged like $2 at the door. Because it's like when you give a free concert, usually – I learned that actually then. That when you do things for free, people don't show up. If you make a little bit of value, they, you know, they will show up. So it was $2 at the door. It was not very packed in there, which is so unfortunate. Jay was not happy with that. But we threw it.

We threw it. And now I can say I did it. Now, how big was he at the time? It's hard for me to rewind the tape and even think back to that point. In other words, was that, in your mind, a huge get? Or was it like, oh, cool, we got this guy who is very well-known on the East Coast, but dot, dot, dot, or was it as big a get as I'm envisioning in my head? You know what? I think at the time, we thought it was a big get because he was well

known in New York or in the tri-state area. And we wanted a name that people would recognize. So it wasn't like he was unknown, you know, but he wasn't the international superstar that he obviously that he is now. And so to us, we were really excited. We knew who he was and we were excited to have him. But Wesleyan is not a, you know, a diverse college either. So, or wasn't then anyway uh and so the let's just call the target audience was not big enough to fill the cafeteria that we had planned what was do you remember your pitch on the phone do you remember any of the wording or anything that you used i know that's a long time ago, but I'm just, I'm always curious because I suspect, I mean, you're, you are a writer. I mean, I view you as that. I mean, you're very good at wordsmithing and it strikes me that people who get good at deal making usually start or very often, not usually because you can develop it later, but very often get a lot of practice in early, right? So if you have to give good phone,

you sort of figure out certain approaches to it so that you don't get hung up on in the first 30 seconds. Well, let's hear, I'll tell you what. I'll bring up another example of negotiation. Maybe we can edge into it that way. So you mentioned East Coast, West Coast. So we'll just in passing mention – we don't have to spend a lot of time on this, but that you ended up teaching a class on Tupac, if I believe. Right? Yeah. In all your spare time, even though you were pre-med and doing all these various things.

What I'm really curious about is something that I read in the New York Times. And it says she got into medical school but lobbied her parents for a year-long sabbatical. And then you said they agreed, which was their mistake. Now, I don't know your parents other than what I've read, but I'm like, okay, I'm just thinking in my mind what that conversation might have been like. So could you walk us through, A, why did you want to take a year-long sabbatical? And then, B, how did you pitch it or what was that like? Oh, my gosh. Well, you know what's funny?

I think the art of the pitch is always about enthusiasm. It's like, it doesn't really matter what you say as long as you're really excited about what you're saying. The people often then will give you the benefit of the doubt. They really will. And along with the Jay-Z conversation, I don't remember exactly what I said, but I know I was enthusiastic about it. and I made the outcome sound probably really good. I'm sure. That there was some benefit. And the same thing with my parents. You know, my dad was very much.

So when I was a kid, I girls or young women who were science and math nerds who also were on the cheerleading team, you know, going to college. There just weren't a lot of numbers of us. And so I found myself in probably the enviable position of having my choice of places to go and getting into programs that, you know, we're looking obviously for diversity, but also somebody like me who just didn't appear to be the normal stereotypical, probably pre-med student. I don't think you're the normal stereotypical anything from what I can tell. You might be right.

You might be right. You might be right. Oh my be right. You might be right. Oh, my God. I've never thought of it that way. Oh, my God. That makes me laugh. But my parents were so proud, you know, of the fact that I was going to be a doctor. Because for them, you know, not only like politics and academics were really important, but, you know, becoming a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer

were the three professions that they felt would be acceptable, you know, for their daughters. And so becoming a doctor was what needed to happen, you know? And so, yeah, I graduated pre-med, but I knew in my heart that I just, I knew I didn't want to do that forever and, or be a doctor forever. And I just didn't know how else to push that back until I could figure out what I actually wanted to do. Cause it wasn't like, I was like, Ooh, I want to go be a dancer. You know, I feel like that would have been easier if I knew what I wanted to do. I just had no idea. I was like, no, I like these arts, but I don't know what career that is. And so I have nothing to tell my parents that like, I'm not going to be a doctor, but I'm going to do this instead. There was just nothing. And so the conversation was, I want to make sure that I'm

going to go to school, be committed to it and graduate in the amount of time that will be acceptable to you. I can't do that unless I've taken time to really figure this out. And that was really my pitch. So the end result was, the picture I was painting was that I could go now and struggle, right? Because I'd be looking for other things to satisfy me and I'd probably fail. Or I could take a year a year get all this wildness out of me that worked that that worked yeah go in a more balanced way i'm just kidding yeah they chose the yeah of course they chose the the previous one they were like yeah yeah yeah go go like you know or i'm sorry of course they chose the lab because of course they were like go go yeah yeah go get all that

out of your system and then go to school and be serious. And, yeah, that was definitely a mistake for them. So they agree. And then you step into this sabbatical. Did you have plans for it already or were you flying blind? Like walk us through any of the milestones in that first year. I had no idea what I was doing. You know what's funny is like back to your question about being

or I think we started about being scared. I was scared. I was really scared. I didn't know what I was going to do. But the thing is that I knew I was really smart and I knew I could like hustle. And so with those two things, armed with smarts and hustle, I had one friend who was living in New York and I always wanted to live in New York. And she was getting her

master's in film from Columbia. And so she had a graduate apartment with a roommate, but they had a couch. And so basically, I told her and her roommate that if they would allow me to stay on their couch for three months while I figured out how to get a job and my own place, you know, that I would cook, you know, I would cook dinner like every night. So that was sort of the trade off. And they agreed. So, yeah, I went to New York with no plan. Like, I really didn't know what I was going to do. But I was I didn't have any money because my parents were definitely not going to finance this year. They were like, you're on your own, kid. You know, in the streets of New York, you're going to have to figure it out. And there was this little Dominican spot on the corner of 125th Street near Columbia where it was called Floridita, where there was a very kind older lady who kind of took me under her wing.

You know, she'd feed me. Man, let me tell you, she'd feed me for free. Wow. Yeah, she'd give me like a meal a me tell you, she'd feed me for free. You know? Yeah. She'd give me like a meal a day. Now, hold on a second. I hate to interrupt, but I have to ask like, how did that happen? I mean, did you just walk in and charm her off her feet or how did that end up happening? Yeah, I would go in and at first it started in the morning because honestly, I really didn't have any money. And so I wanted my money to

last. So I would go in in the morning and they were selling like fresh rolls for 10 cents. And so I would buy the fresh roll, um, eat that. I, um, you know, had coffee back at the house or tea. And so I would go back to the apartment and that would be literally like sometimes my meal for the day. Wow. You know, and so I went in every day and she knew that I was coming in every day, but she knew I didn't have a job, you know. So we just started making conversation and very much,

I mean, it's very much in my personality to talk to strangers. I'm very curious about people. And so I asked her a ton of questions, you know, and then she started asking me questions and I don't know, we just struck up a friendship. And eventually I confessed to her that I didn't know what I was doing. You know, I was just here trying to figure it out. I was sleeping on my friend's couch, you know, and she had a lot of really great advice.

And one of the practical ones, she had lots of good like life advice. But one practical one was that her niece had signed up at a temp agency and they would call her in the morning and tell her where to go. And she was making good money doing that. Right. Cause for me, it was like, I'm making no money. So any money was just pay me in roles. Like I'm cool, you know, but she, you know, gave me the number of the temp agency and literally changed my life, you know, cause I called the temp agency. They started sending me out on jobs. I started making some money. I was able to feed myself. And then one day the magic call came, which was that Spike Lee had fired his assistant and they needed me to go answer the phones at his new advertising agency that he had just created on Madison Avenue, 49th Street in Manhattan.

And I went. Okay. So I have a bunch of questions that are probably going to drive my listeners nuts because they're going to be like, Ferris, you're asking the most unimportant, uninteresting questions imaginable, but you're cooking for your friends every night, right? What were your go-to, do you remember your go-to meals oh yeah they're still my go-to meals now okay always like some sort of starch right so either pasta or rice where my my two that i like or potatoes every once again but i don't like potatoes myself so that uh a meat you

know so i like stews and soups uh so chicken or beef or fish in like a tomato-based soup or tomato-based stew. And then a green. That was usually some variation of that every day. Do you have a favorite green? If you had to choose one or two to have in your refrigerator as a staple, what would they be? Oh, maybe some. Well, I really like collard greens now. Oh, so good.

Right? Collard greens are so good. They're hard to make, but once you know how to do now. Oh, so good. Right? Collard greens are so good. They're hard to make, but once you know how to do it, they're so delicious. And collards can sit for some time, so you don't have to make them every day. Yeah, they don't fall apart as much. One, just since I have food on the brain, I haven't had much to eat today, I'll make a recommendation. If you get a light fish, like a cod or tilapia, you can cook it in almond flour. So you just kind of coat it in almond flour and then you can make tacos using the collard greens as the wraps. What?

And they're just amazing. Anyway. This is a very interesting recipe. recipe oh it's fantastic okay yeah get some guacamole it's it's killer so now okay i want to talk about the uh your fresh role connection and the life advice she gave you is there do you recall any of the other advice that she gave you besides the very practical tactical recommendation yeah yeah yeah you know it wasn't so much even about her advice, but the fact that she was so encouraging, you know, like I would go in there every morning and she would just, you know, have the big smile on her face and just say, you know, so today's the day, you know, today's the day like that, that kind of advice, you know, where like every day, even if it didn't happen yesterday, she's like, today's it it. Like, it's it. You know, you're going to get it today. And she didn't even know what in the hell I was trying to do. It's like, today's the day. It's it.

You know, but also just, you know, things like, you know, she's just smiling at people, be smiling all the time. You know, just stuff like that where, you know, I feel like any sort of older mom or grandma type of character would tell you you know that like smile at people be friendly you know today's the day make it happen today you know that kind of thing she was just more of an encourager than anything well i mean without the right state and without the right optimism it's it's hard to come up with proper strategy or put any of it yeah into action right so that's sort of a precursor to everything else. Yeah, she was absolutely right. So Spike Lee's ad agency. All right.

All right. So you're there. And my understanding, I do not know much about this. I just did a little bit of homework, and I wanted to get the real story. So my understanding is that he dropped a draft of, I think it was Bamboozled in front of me. Yes, Bamboozled. And said, tell me what you think of this. Yeah, he told me to read it.

Okay, got it. He told you to read. Okay, this is even better. Got it. All right, so this makes it even more. Yeah, because I was the idiot. That's really important. Okay, so now tell us what happened after that. So I makes it even more. Yeah, because I was the idiot. That's really important. Okay. So now tell us what happened after that.

So I'm there answering phones. Now, just as people hear this story, that difference is really, really important. Here, please read this. It's different. Exactly. Because I was answering phones. Let's remember, I was answering phones. I was doing nothing else but answering phones. Actually, that's a lie. I was getting coffee.

I was cleaning up dirt. Like I was doing whatever needed to be done. Right. And, um, yeah, he had just, he had just finished writing bamboozled. He was about to start like, you know, casting and principal photography. And he, yeah, he was walking by my little reception desk and he dropped it. And he was like, Hey, read this. Cause actually he knew when I'd gone in a few, a few times that he'd made small talk with me. He knew that I loved to read and that I wanted to write were two things that I thought I wanted to do at the time. And so I think for him it was just a, you know, like I just wrote something here, you read it, you know. But what I heard was you should give your thoughts on this

and by thoughts i thought he meant like mark it up so i took my nice and why i had a red pen i will never know like i curse myself to this day like why did you pick up a red pen of all things like why not a blue pen or a black pen but red is very judgmental yeah red is a very judgmental pen you know and i read it and made notes and corrections and i don't know just made yeah lots of markups in his manuscript and then he came he came back like you know it wasn't the next day but it was, maybe three days later. Which, by the way, was quite a feat because Bamboozled is a hard script to read. I don't know if you've seen the film, but it's very heavy.

And he came back and he was like, what did you think? And I handed him, I handed it to him. And he, like, opened, like, he looked kind of confused. He opens it up. He's, like, flipping through the page. He's like, you marked up my script? And I was like, oh. It was like one of those moments where you're just like, oh, my god.

What? Does that know what you want me to do? I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong? I don't know what I did wrong. And he just shook his head and just walked off. And I thought for sure I was fired. I was like, where's my purse?

Let me just go ahead and get my purse right now because I'm out of here. But he came back out like, you know, I'm sitting there like literally shaking. I think I really need to pee. It's like my armpits are itching. I'm like, oh, my God, I can't even. And he left me like that for like an hour and a half. And he comes out and he's like, you made some good notes. I was like, oh, okay. Okay. And it was literally that moment where he

was like, you know what? You should stick around. He was like, I think we could find a job for you here. And literally that's how I got my permanent job there. So out of that crazy moment, uh, I believe he realized my potential. Oh man. What a great story. So a friend of mine, you may have bumped into him or heard of him, but you should meet him at some point. He's in the Bay Area named Naval Ravikant, a fantastic entrepreneur and investor, a good friend of mine. And he has said, I'm paraphrasing here, but something along the lines of, if I always did what I was qualified to do, I'd be pushing a broom somewhere. Oh, true. And it's just such a great story because there are so many examples of moments like this.

When I look back at the stories of folks I've had on the podcast it's like just doing that one extra thing that you may not be qualified to do even if it's accidental right but taking that initiative uh right is so key now if uh if we look forward then from that point, were there any particularly critical decisions that were sort of forged your career over the next few years following that incident that you can look back to? Yeah, I mean, I think so. You know, I really love that quote that you just said, because it is true. You know, it's like at one point I was doing really well with Spike. You know, I got promoted a few times and I was looking around thinking because what he was really doing was now what we call like the pop culture marketing, right, or consumer engagement. But at the time, it wasn't called that. And what I felt was like, oh, this is easy to me. You know, I can do this. I need something that will make people pay attention to me and know that I'm smart. So I was like, oh, let me go sign up for

some pharmaceutical advertising, like a pharmaceutical advertising job, you know, because that's hard, you know, and it's really, really difficult to execute. And I lasted like three months there, which, by the way, also led me to understand that, of course, I'm capable. You know, of course, it's like if I didn't push myself that way, I wouldn't have then made the next jump. Right. Knowing that, OK, I'm smart enough to do this, but this is not what I want to do. I want to get back to the things I do know how to do and make them better. And to me, those are some of the more critical moments, whereas it feels like failure, but it's actually helping you turn around, helping you to put a finer point on what you actually know how to do or what you should be doing. And there's been, you know, several, several times like that where I've felt like, you know, maybe stretching with something that I wasn't quite sure I could, I could reach that bar, but I was going to fake it anyway. Right. So, you know, it's like when I, at one point, um, after I left Spike's agency, I went to Pepsi and after a few years there, I quit and took a job at a fashion company called Ashley Stewart. And if you don't mind me asking, why did you quit? I quit because God, man, I'm telling you, like I quit for the most ridiculous reason sometimes. I quit because I was a brand manager and, you know, there a particular set of responsibilities. You couldn't really

stretch outside of those. And it just wasn't, I was just like, oh my God, if I stay here, I'm just going to be some, you know, like middle management person with nothing, you know, no excitement. I just didn't feel like that was a thing for me. And not that there's anything wrong with that. It just wasn't for me. I wanted to do more. And also I had already begun to what I would call experiment with my look. I really didn't want to look like my colleagues. And I knew that I didn't have to. And so I'd already started to experiment and people would make comments all the time, you know, like about whatever I was wearing, literally every day. I felt like I was like walking a runway every day because I would walk into the office and be like, Ooh, what you got on today? You know? And

so people would say things like, why don't you, why are you working? I usually work in a fashion company. And mind you, I had no idea about the business of fashion at all, zero idea, but I knew I had obviously the gold standard in marketing at the time, which was this Pepsi, you know, pedigree in marketing. And the small company, as I mentioned, Ashley Stewart, which was based in Secaucus, New Jersey, was looking for the head of marketing because they were trying to turn around the brand. I'd also just had my daughter and the brand was really targeted towards plus size women of color, you know, to like, you know, fashion was print, you know, like zebra print and gold and like lame and things like that. It wasn't the like, you know, competitor who was like, you know, tan clothes and black and grays. And I, you know, gained some weight with the pregnancy of my, with my pregnancy. And I just felt like I wanted to change the way that women were portrayed, or at least plus size women were portrayed. And it felt like the right

thing to do. So without any experience at all, I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go do that. Plus it was a team. And it was the first time I would be the head of anything, you know? Because I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to go do that. Plus, it was a team. And it was the first time I would be the head of anything. So I was like, oh, I want experience as a leader to run my own team. I have this awesome marketing background. And I am super cute. Like, why can't I do it? I don't understand. Yeah, I went.

And again, I failed in like a year. By a year, I was done. It was over. What was the cause of the failure? Or what were the factors? Man, there were many factors. One, I didn't know when the hell I was doing. Let's just start there. I can admit that now, you know? No, but it was just I bit off too much, you know? I just now looking back, I'm like, what the hell was I thinking? You know, it was like I bit off more than I could chew. It was both the fact that or those are a few reasons.

One, it was a pretty big team and I'd never run a team that size before. And leadership is something that you grow into. You know, you're not you don't just run in and do it. You know, it's like you've got to build it. You know, you've got to understand people. You have to understand how what your management style is like. That's as important as the people you're managing. How to manage different types of people and different types of personalities.

How to motivate people. And then, yeah, the simple basics of I didn't know anything about merchandising or about store turns. And without that kind of knowledge, I wasn't as efficient to my business partner as I could have been. So I brought all this wealth of knowledge about the foundations of marketing and email campaigns and photo shoots and getting models together and the look and feel and partnerships with different companies. But I didn't understand the basics of fashion, you know, and how the business turns. And so how could I be a good contributor, a good business partner to my colleagues? I just couldn't. And so, yeah, about, I would say about nine months into it, I was like, yeah, you know what,

this ain't going to work. But I didn't want to admit failure. And so it was somewhat of a relief too, when they came to me and they were like, do you like what you're doing? Do you think you're good at what you do? And I'm like, I think I'm good at what I do, just not here. And they're like, yeah, us too. And I'm like, yeah, okay. It sounds good. Yeah. So I'll just, I'll just, I'll just grab my things and go. Oh, man. And how did Beats enter the scene? Yeah.

You're hitting like all the points. So I went back to Pepsi after my Ashley Stewart experience, which was a much better situation for me, by the way, because I went back knowing that I didn't want to do traditional brand management, but that I was really good at the pop culture stuff. And so we created a new group called the Music Entertainment Group, which meant that I was doing all the deal making for all of the brands in the Pepsi portfolio across all entertainment types. And so all of the deals were coming through me and I was able to really do some fun things. Towards the end of or the middle of 2013, my husband, who I'd been married to for almost 10 years, was diagnosed with cancer. And I was really at the, you know, it just hit us at a time when we were both really high in our careers, right?

Because I had really found my stride in what I felt like corporate America, but in marketing with this, you know, music and entertainment marketing team. We had just come off like this big, you know, show for the Super Bowl with Beyonce. I was, I mean, I was feeling myself. I was like, I am just the best. Like nothing can take me down, you know? And my husband, Peter was also doing really well. He was in advertising as well. He was a producer and we were both doing really well. Our daughter was four. We had our little family. And when he was diagnosed, it was just such a blow to us. Unfortunately, neither of us are, you know, strangers to cancer. Both of our mothers are cancer survivors, breast cancer survivors,

and they both, you know, received treatment and radiation and chemo and all of that, surgery. And so, like, our first questions were, you know, what happens? What's the plan? What do we do? And there was no plan because he had a very rare cancer. And for him, he just wanted to be able to live his life, you know, as passionately as he could for whatever amount of time that he had left. And we found out really quickly that he really didn't have a lot of time. And so six months after he was diagnosed, he passed away. And that was in December. We just actually celebrated four years that he's been gone. And I just, I was so lost, you know, in that I wasn't quite sure what to do. We had been living this very fast life. He was so much alive for me. And that in those last months, we were trying to do everything that we could

to fit the rest of our lives into those few weeks. And one of the things he made me promise, along with, he was also a very funny guy. So he had a lot of jokes. One of them was that I'm not Catholic. I'm not really religious. I am spiritual though, but he was, you know, born and raised Catholic. And he promised, or he made me promise that I would raise our daughter Catholic after he died or he would haunt me, which was like a real threat. Because I'm afraid of ghosts. And I was like, you can't haunt me. That's not fair. And he's like, yeah, but I will, though. So you better raise her Catholic, which makes me laugh now because I really am raising her Catholic because I'm really afraid. But in any case, that's a whole nother story. But part of that also, and what he made me promise was that, you know, I wouldn't stop living life as, you know, deeply as, you know, again, back to the

fire, you know, with as much fire as possible, that what we had learned in the six months was that you really can't take any day for granted, you know, and that I would need to do that. And so after he passed away, and I went back to work, because I, you know, I really do enjoy my work, and I find solace in it, and I find inspiration in it. But I went back to Pepsi, and I just knew that I needed to find something different to do, or something that, something that would like pull me into the future, if that makes any sense at all. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And also, by divine intervention, I met Jimmy Iovine around the same time. And Jimmy had just launched Beats Music. So he already had Beats electronics, headphones and speakers, et cetera. That was already a booming business. But he had launched Beats Music, So he already had Beats Electronics, you know, headphones and speakers, etc. That was

already a booming business. And so but he had launched Beats Music, which was the first streaming platform for music under him. And he was looking for a head of marketing. And the funny thing is, of course, like, here I was like, okay, I know big brand marketing. I get it, right? All of the important, the foundational stuff. I also understand the music entertainment space that I've been doing it. Plus, I needed emotionally something to look forward to. You know, I needed to build the future. And I needed something, again,

back to like taking risks and quitting jobs, maybe sometimes for stupid reasons. I was like, you know, I need to take another risk. I need another one. I need something to make me feel alive. And so I told him I would move across the country with my four-year-old daughter. This was three months after my husband had passed away. And I said, okay, I will leave New York. I'm going to quit my job, leave New York, and I'm moving to LA to help you build this thing. And I also took it as a sign that Beats Music was born on my birthday. So I was like, pal, this makes all the sense in the world.

Yes, I'm coming. Yeah, so I moved to L.A. And, yeah. So there's so many different things. I'd love to ask you about a few of the stories that you just told. Before I do that, anyone listening who has not seen The Defiant Ones, which is a miniseries, incredibly well done, about Dr. Dre and Jimmy and the entire story of Beats

and certainly both of their lives, I highly, highly recommend checking it out. I had a number of questions and I thought we could start with, just to rewind the clock, this is certainly tying into your late husband, but in Tribe of Mentors, thank you for being part of the book, by the way. Yes. Oh, such an honor. I asked you about books that have had a large impact on your life. And you mentioned Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. So I was wondering if you could just explain for people why that has had an impact on your life and what it's meant to you. Yeah.

Oh, man. Okay. So Toni Morrison is one of my favorite authors. I've been reading her since I was in high school and she's a really hard author. You know, she doesn't take it easy on her readers. I think, you know, it's like sometimes, um, you know, you, you write for the lowest common denominator, right? But she doesn't, she's like, you're going to meet me at my level. And she's just a really difficult author, but I really love her storytelling tells thes the experience of the African American, you know, the agency that basically Mad Men was created about, right?

And Peter worked, my late husband Peter, worked at DDB. And they had a cafeteria at the bottom of the building. And so one day I'm standing in line, Peter, by the way, was a, you know, 6'4", of Italian descent, just a big dude with a big voice and a big personality and a big gold chain, which sounds really stereotypical, but he really did wear like a gold chain. And so he's standing behind me in the line. By the way, I don't notice him at all. And he, which is hard to imagine because I just described him as like this big person. But guess what?

I'm like a big personality too. So screw that. You know what I mean? Anyway, so he's standing behind me and, you know, he's trying to drop some lines, you know, like pick up lines and whatever. I'm just like, this dude just needs to like quit, you know, to turn around. And he's like, I've been coming down here to try and catch you. I would love to take you out sometime. And I was like, or no, he said, I would love to get to know you better. And I was like, all right,

if you want to get to know me better, you should read Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, and then we can talk about it. And I walked away, right? Thinking like, good, there we go. Got rid of him. But literally, like three weeks later, he finds me in the cafeteria again. And he's like, I read the book. And I was like, no, that's actually impossible. I don't believe you. But OK, we can have a coffee and we can talk about it. So we sat down for coffee.

And he knew so much about the characters, obviously the plot lines. We had such a rich discussion and it was such a beautiful moment for me because I was like, wow, okay. You know, when somebody is really interested, when somebody really wants to get to know you, they're going to do whatever it is that it takes to get to know you. The bar was raised so high, you know, and then it was raised higher because then for my birthday, which was about a month later, by then we'd been dating. He painted a picture of characters from the book for me for my birthday. And I knew then I was like, this guy is everything. If he is willing to get to know me on my terms, on my level, even though it's a high bar, and he's going to jump it and then go the extra step of being creative about how he presents it back to me in a new way, that was going to be it. Such a great story.

Yeah, that dude brought his A-game. That's a serious commitment. I mean, legit A-game. Leg his A-game. That's a serious commitment. I suppose, grief and what helped you through the grieving process. I mean, were there any particular realizations or resources or pieces of advice or anything that helped you throughout that process? Yeah. You know, it's amazing. The part about our story that I don't often talk about, actually, I've never talked about, so you got to excuse me because I might get emotional, is that before he was diagnosed, we were actually separated. We were, you know, it was just a difficult time. And like I said, we were both moving so fast in our careers. Things were really popping. And I think we just stopped communicating properly. So we were separated. And I really didn't think that we would get back

together, you know, because I just thought, you know what, relationships end. And, you know, that was a time of life and da-da-da-da-da, right? And then he got sick. And I realized that, you know, you only get these chances at this type of love maybe once, you know, like the very lucky get it once. And I had it. And so for me, it was a real moment of reckoning, you know, to understand that, you know, love like that doesn't come around and to appreciate it. And that love like that not only doesn't come around often and to appreciate it, but that it can last after the physical, you know. And after he passed away, it was for me really understanding what it means to forgive yourself, you know, like regret and feeling terribly about maybe angry words you've said or, you know, taking someone for granted or

taking love for granted. It just changed my whole perspective. And for me, the grief was not even just about just losing him, but also forgiving myself, you know, for having lost precious time that I didn't need to lose, that I chose to lose, and that I would never do that again, you know. And so for me, the grief wasn't just about, or healing wasn't just about getting over, and I'm using air quotes because there is no getting over, you know, but it was about learning the lessons from just what I never want to repeat again. You know, if it's like, if I'm blessed enough to ever find that kind of love again, I will never take it for granted, you know, and I think that's part of the healing is that understanding what is really important, what's important to us, what's important in making us happy and making us feel satisfied, that things can change, but that we should always,

always, always appreciate, you know, the greatest gifts that we're given. And I will never forget Thank you for that. I, um, that also hits home for me in, in, in a few ways. Um, unfortunately I've, I've never, I have suffered the loss of family members and loved ones and, uh, best friends, but never a partner like that. Uh, but the, uh, two things that have historically been, I'm getting better, but historically been very big challenges for me are a forgiving myself for anything. And B, running maybe a little too hot in the anger department. And, and, yeah, so what, what I'd you to modulate those two things? Sort of beating yourself up and or just the anger piece. Because I think what I see very often, certainly in myself is that,

and I'm not saying this is you, I don't want to project, but like people who are very kind of aggressive, ask for forgiveness, not for permission, go-getter types, very frequently also have some collateral damage from both of those things. Right? Yeah. So I've tried to work. No, I haven't tried.

I have worked very hard on trying to recognize that those aren't always the best fuels and ways to approach things. But how is your thinking about, say, anger or self-forgiveness changed? What have you found helpful? Do you have any exercises or phrases that you revisit? Anything like that. Well, it's interesting because you're right. I would agree that folks who are high-functioning in this way run hot in a lot of different ways.

And for me, anger is one that I think before, I kind of see myself like before Peter died and after Peter died, you know, and before he died, I was definitely quick to anger, you know, impatient, you know, unforgiving is probably a good word, you know, always demanding, you know, I expected everything, And I expect everything to go well, too, by the way, because it had, quite frankly, I mean, you know, things had been tough sometimes. And as we talked about the Phoenix and the fire and all that stuff. But I always found a way through. And so I was and maybe arrogant is a good word to all of those words to describe the way that I was.

And then something totally uncontrollable, you know, an event so catastrophic and traumatic that was outside of my control happened. And all of a sudden it just knocked me down a peg or two, you know, maybe three or four. And coming back from that has been all of this learning, you know, about not running so hot all the time because really it's useless. Yeah. You can still get a lot of things done without having to leave so much chaos in your wake. For sure. That, you know, there's an opportunity. I'm not saying never get angry.

I still get angry. You know, things happen. I'm still impatient. You know, I want things to happen like today all the time. But knowing that I can't damage others based on my anger, you know, because then you have to fix that and you have to go back and, you know, correct those things. And sometimes that's more difficult to do than if you hadn't made the mistake in the first place.

For sure. So understanding that not everything gets done through anger and the fire and screaming, but that you can get a lot more done when you're not that way, when you're peaceful. And again, not that I don't get angry, but it's just that I unwind it much easier now. And some of those simple things really do help. It might sound corny, but the walking away, the counting to five, the thinking, okay, let me think about this a different way. How else can I get this done? The conversation with myself really, really, really, really, really helps. The pause. Because I'm one of those. It actually does take me a long time to get angry. But once I get angry, the fuse is lit and poof,

I'm like firecracker, right? So learning to kind of slow myself when I can feel that happening, the walking away is really important. And those things have really helped also make me reconsider, you know, because when you do take time off, you walk away for a second. Oh, let me give you a good example. It's like, you know, the fireback email. Oh, man, I've had to like learn to not do that. You know, it's like, man, I used to be dangerous with that thing. You know, it's like, I would get something that would just piss me off. And then here it goes.

Right. And then send. Yeah. And it usually caused a lot of damage. And now, you know, getting things like that, I stop. Maybe I'll write something, but I definitely don't send it. You know, reread it. Reread it again.

You know, reread it, reread it again, you know, sometimes pray. I'm like, Lord, just save them from themselves because I'm about to murder all of them, okay? These words are fire, you know? But then being able to, you know, unwind that and think about different ways to approach it, doing it with the honey instead of the brimstone is a better option. Yes, for sure. One question that I found really helpful for me personally, because man, have I created some messes, especially if I just haven't had enough to eat. And then I remember my, my, uh, effectively my chief marketing officer on a few occasions has been, he sent me a text and it would be something like, wow, you guys just came out throwing haymakers,

huh? Yeah, great. Now I have to spend the rest of the week doing political damage control because I just didn't have enough peanut butter in the morning or whatever. It's so stupid. But the question that I found so helpful for me uh is you know what else might this mean right and because particularly with email like you might read it like you're doing disney voiceovers in your head but you're using like the the super villain from lion king or something as the voice for the person who sent

you this email and in fact they were just like no very matter of fact like smile on the face this is this and but you hear this this horrible and in sort of insinuation and then then the gloves come off and it's a big mess uh so i i uh but um another question is related to, well, an answer that you've given before. This, this was a journalist asked you what advice you would give your younger self.

And you can feel free to modify this and maybe add to it. But what caught my eye was don't make pro and con lists. And I was, I was hoping you could elaborate on that and maybe give us an example or two from your experience. Yeah. Well, okay. So that has more to do with my feeling. And it's very personal to me. It doesn't work for everybody. But what I have found in my experience is that when I make pro and con lists, it's usually because I talk myself out of a good idea or talk myself into a really bad one. You know, that my spirit knew, right, that my spirit knew what to do. But my head was like, girl, you better make sure that's right.

You know? Right. And that internal dialogue, because, you know, I'm thinking, well, you know what, academically and logically, let's think through this. But my spirit always knew what to do. And more often than not, actually, no, I mean, every single time that I did not listen to what my spirit was telling me, it was a job to take or a relationship or a business deal every single time. And I think the other thing is that for me, you know, learning to trust that and call whatever you want, spirit, gut, inner voice, you know, there are lots of words for it. Learning to trust that has been a real process. I'm still doing it now, you know, where it's like, I don't have to have a reason, you know, it's like, okay, brain, just shut off. Like, I don't have to rationalize this. It doesn't have to make logical sense. I just don't like that. And I'm not gonna

do it. You know? And by the way, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, I have proven myself correct that later on, I find out like, oh, that person was a total ass, you know, or like that job, somebody else took it and look at them now, you know, like there have been time and time and time and time again when I've been right and I couldn't have explained it to myself or anyone else. And so the pro and conness has gone by the wayside. I just don't do that anymore. I try very much to then just listen to my spirit, you know, instead. So it's like if I, if ever the time that it's like, oh, I'm going to go into a quiet, you know, because when you write the pro and con list, right, you go into a quiet space. You think about the issue. Maybe you write it down.

Then you start writing your list. For me, instead of doing all of that, I really do go and get into my quiet space and then just concentrate. What do I want to do? What does this feel like? Am I happy about this? Does it bring me joy? Those type of questions. Usually, I can answer those. Yeah, this is so important. I really like the wording you used also, which I'm sure I'm going to mangle right off the bat. But what you said about whenever you use a pro and con list, you're either talking your way out of a good idea or into a bad idea. It's so true. I mean, I remember this was a long time ago, more than 10 years ago, but I was dating this girl. We dated for about two years and I was agonizing over this pro and con list for a potential deal and looking at the deal

structure and the partnership and this project that I really wanted to do or thought I wanted to do. And this just went on for weeks, right? Going, negotiating or every little deal point and so on. And eventually she, she was not, eventually, she was not involved in any negotiations or deal structuring like this. But nonetheless, at dinner one night, she goes, do you trust this guy or not? And I was like, no. And she's like, well, then don't do the deal.

And I was like, good advice. Right. And again, to reiterate this is not necessarily representative of everyone in the world certainly and there are times when you have to use data to make good decisions but whenever i have had that little spider sense tingling or that little gut warning and i've ignored it 100 of the time and just like you caught yourself, you know, I'm inclined to hedge it and say, no, like many times, no, a hundred percent of the time it has ended up being correct. And it would have saved me from a lot of pain. And what I've noticed for my,

for myself too, is that it's taken a lot of practice to start to listen to that and furthermore i've had for decades the habit which is not constructive of over caffeinating and using a lot of caffeine and what i found is that that is like hitting mute on for me my ability to listen to that intuition or that gut feel which is really based on thousands or millions of years of evolution like your body is trying to tell you something right and uh but if i over caffeinate it it's there's too much noise and the signal doesn't get through that is so interesting uh so the i'd love to talk to you about career advice and to hear about maybe best advice or worst advice that you've received from whether it's mentors or colleagues. And we can kick it off with one that I read about, which maybe you can fact check or clarify.

But a well-intentioned female executive told you to never wear red lipstick or red nail polish. Is that accurate? Or am I getting that from someone else? No, that was 100% accurate. All right. What was the rationale there? And why did it end up not being good advice?

You know, what's interesting is that I feel like this is, we can put this in the category of when people have good intentions, you know, like you were talking about reading it in the Disney character voice, you know, she was reading it or she was saying it in a very nice way. I'm sure she was doing it to help me, but it was really, uh, came across sinister. And for me, I really did listen to it. I accepted it. I tried to implement that. The reason why I say it's the worst advice I ever received was that it was damaging to sort of reaction to that, right? Which meant that red to me is one of my favorite colors. I do wear red lipstick, red nail polish, and it does make me feel bold. Back to that word again. And I think sometimes I use it as armor. And what that did was that stripped me of my armor.

It stripped me of this idea that like I could be bold. It made me wonder whether or not I could show up as myself all the time. You know, that perhaps I was too bold and I was too loud and I was too this and I was too that. And that's the damage that it did. You know, and that's for me, when I look back, it's not about lipstick or nail polish, really, but it was about trying to quiet this boldness and making me wonder whether or not I could appear as myself in any space, in any corporate space and be accepted. And so that was terrible. Clearly, I ditched that advice for good and definitely created my own rules. But it was really tough, you know, because obviously, I was, well, not obviously, but I did respect her. And she was more successful than I was.

And I wanted to be successful. And so when somebody who's successful tells you to do something, you try to do it, even when it damages you. You know? How did, let's, let's talk about good advice. Who are people that you think of in your career as important mentors along the way, if anyone comes to mind? Is there anyone in particular who really helped you to maybe think differently or make better decisions to hone you as a human being or as a professional? Yeah. I mean, certainly I could, you know, point to my early role model slash mentors, you know, my parents, obviously. When I started working, you know, Spike Lee, definitely, you know, and his boldness and his, what I I would call like not carelessness, but he really defied how people in, you know, his work is his work and he doesn't care about the criticism.

You know, he's going to create the work that he knows should be seen. And that has certainly inspired me, you know, that sometimes critics are just people who can't see the world the way you see it. So who cares? That is a great way to put it. Yes. Right? That is a great way to put it. Yeah. And along the way, there have been different types of people who've come in and out, you know? It's so funny because now when people are like, oh, I want you to be my mentor, you know, and I'm like, but do you need me right now? You know, like, I want to know from them, like, do you need me right now though? You know, like you see me, but you might not need me. You know, you might need somebody else at this very moment because mentors are like friendships,

you know, some of them are long lasting. Some of them are for a season. Some of them are from far away. I've been inspired by a lot of people that I don't know. Kris Jenner. You know? Oprah, even though I've begun to know her recently, which is awesome. Arianna Huffington, who has a real impact, a significant impact on my life right now. But there have been lots of people along the way that I have felt, you know, drawn to because I want to not emulate them, but live more boldly or make different decisions based on things I've seen that they've been able to do. Yeah. What do you see in, just to take the last

example, Ariana, or what have you observed observed that is or heard that has impressed you uh because she's she's a fascinating woman where i i've i've become friends with her over the last several years uh along with her sister but what's your experience been like you know what i learned from her it was it's in present she you know, when you're in a conversation with her or hell, when you text her, she is so responsive. You know, when, when I'm in her presence and she is talking to me, I don't think that she's thinking about anything else except whatever we're talking about. You know, it's a really, it's a really important quality and one that I have now taken on to be more present in conversations.

You know, because you have your phone or you're distracted, you think about something else, you're like, you know, going on and on. Whether it's in the work environment or in a casual environment, I'm trying to be more present so that I can really hone in on what people are saying and how I'm responding, you know, to them. And it's been really, really fascinating to see her do that and how much I appreciate it. So I know people would appreciate it when I do it. You know, it's a good lesson. You're so right. I've noticed just how dramatic the impact is when you're having, if you're having a conversation with Ariana, let's just say it's at a dinner that she's hosting and she is a Jedi master of,

of hosting such things. But let's say there are 20 people when she's talking to you, even though many people might be vying for her attention, you feel like you're the only person in the room and her, her eye contact is also just incredible. And I was just thinking, I never really revisited this, but when I think about what I remember from those conversations, I remember a lot of the detail of what we talked about. But even though other people at the dinner were very impressive in various ways, they didn't have that same focus when we were talking. And I'm struggling right now to think of really next to anything that we spoke about. Yeah, she's really, she's

very, very present. Yeah, it's extremely true. It's a really great lesson, you know, because I think also, you know, Maya Angelou said, you know, people rarely remember what you said, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. And I have learned that from Ariana, too, just in living, that when I'm with her, I feel like she cares about me, you know, cares about what I have to say, is responsive to what I'm saying. I want people to feel that way when they interact with me. You know, I want them to feel like I care because I do. And sometimes I think it just comes across wrong because you're over here looking at the notification that just came on your phone. You didn't mean to look like you weren't paying attention or like you're looking around the room when they're asking you a question. But to maintain that eye contact, be present in the

conversation, not trying to run off somewhere, makes people feel like you care. And I do. And so I want to bring that across. Well, I think it does come across. And I know we only have a little bit of time left, but I'd love to ask a few, just a few more questions. And just as we're going through the chapters of your life thus far, I have to ask, how did you know that Uber was the right next move for you? Right, right. Man, you know, if there was ever a temptation to write a pro and con list, it would have been when I was going to take the job at Uber. That would have been the moment to write one. But I still didn't do it.

So I really came upon it because Ariana, I'd been talking to Ariana about, and this was shortly after Delete Uber. She's on the board and we were having tea at her apartment. And I was talking to her about what I would do as a marketer. I was working at Apple, of course, and she was really fascinated by what I was saying. And she suggested I talk to Travis Kahnick, who was the CEO at the time, about it. And I was just like, oh, OK, I don't care. It's fine. And he happened to be in LA.

So she arranged for us to meet for an hour to talk about it. We ended up talking for eight hours. Eight hours. Oh, my God. Eight hours. And some of it was education, right? Me telling him, just being like, hey, no, you should really try this. This is the thing.

But also the human connection of really understanding what happened, why things happened, and himself as a human being. And it was just a complex conversation. And I left that conversation thinking, man, they've got a job to do. Like, ooh, I hope they find somebody who could do it. And then I was in my very comfortable Apple office over the next few days, and I was like, shit, I have to go do it. And then I, I, you know, my, in my very comfortable Apple office over the next few days. And I was like, shit, I have to go do it. Like I have to go do it. I have to leave. I have to leave. I have to do it, you know? And it was, it was a combination of, you know, this idea, which of course now so many people are talking about sexual harassment and,

you know, diversity issues and discrimination, et cetera. And quite honestly, I just feel, I feel the real need to contribute to the solutions, you know, that I don't want to sit on the sidelines and wait for somebody else to fix it. You know, especially when it comes down to these more sensitive and what can be catastrophic challenges. This is not necessarily about saving a brand. This is about saving an ideal, you know, that I want our industry, I want my future, I want my daughter's future to be changed. I want it to be changed because of this moment. You know, I don't want us to be the same. And so this is not to me. So when people say like, oh, are you going to save the brand of Uber? I'm like, no, that's not what I'm here to do.

You know, I'm here to save an ideal. I'm here to make sure that we never go backwards and that we use this catalyst moment to propel us forward into a better community and a better society and a better industry and better work environments. That's it. You know, so, and if the brand gets saved along the way, fantastic. society and a better industry and better work environments. That's it. You know? So, and if the brand gets saved along the way, fantastic. Well, I think you, for me, you, you highlight, what's the right expression? The right expression might be sort of proactive, constructive dissent. Dissent isn't quite the right word, but if I look at the pull expression, the right expression might be sort of proactive, constructive dissent.

Dissent isn't quite the right word, but if I look at the pull quote at the, at the top of your chapter in Tribe of Mentors, which went completely nuts online when, when I put it up, uh, we spend far too much time complaining about the way things are and forget that we have the power to change anything and everything. Right. And it reminds me of something that i was also told i want to say was joseph gordon lovett who's a really smart guy uh which was you know it's very easy to say it's very easy to say what you're against but it's important to say what you're for right and yes and there's a big difference right right? There's a very big difference

between trying to build a better future versus trying to tear down what causes you some type of visceral negative reaction, right? And they're actually very different things. So how would you encourage people to think about this? I mean, there are a lot of hot button issues. There are a lot of things that need to be fixed. But there's also a lot of complaining on the internet that, as far as I can tell, does very little to actually fix things and repair things. Correct. So how can we steer the ship in the right direction if that's possible? Or how would you encourage people to change their thinking so that they're more likely to build as opposed to just simply destroy and attack?

Right. You know, it's – wow, this is a big one. Yeah. You know? Yeah. This is a big one. Yeah, yeah. For me, well, first of all, I love that idea about encouraging versus sort of tearing down or destroying. By the way, I am very much a fan of calling things out when we don't like it, making noise about it. But I want us to go a step further.

You know, it's not just about making the noise, but then how are we actively changing the set environment? You know, for me, that's, it's very much like, you know, yes, the quote that's in your book, which again, by the way, thank you so much for asking me to participate. It was really, man, by the way, when I got it, I was like, holy crap, look how big this book is. It's amazing. You know, so many people in here. Oh, man, it was like a party. It was amazing. Thank you for being part of it.

Yeah, really. But I really am enamored by the idea that we really can't change anything at all, you know, and that each of us are responsible, responsible for the change. You know, I said it before, like even early on in my career, when we were, when people would talk about diversity numbers and the lack of women and this so forth and so on. And I would say, but why are we looking to the CEO to change the numbers? You know, what about us? Like, if you're not in a position to hire, it's like, well, can I recommend, you know, someone in a job that I see open, right? When I am in a position to hire, can I hire from a diverse pool of candidates? You know, when I do have a seat at the table, can I implement procedures and processes to

change the dynamics of how our corporation or organization looks? You know, that we must do that. You know, we have the power to do that. And that just sitting back and complaining about things doesn't help anything. And on the other side of it, I really do think there's a lack of encouragement in general these days. Yeah, I agree. You know, that when we see good things, when we see great things, let's applaud the hell out of it. Yes.

You know, let's scream from the rooftops when we see amazing things happening. Hell, I'm here for everybody gets a prize. You know, it's like, if you see even a small thing, let's applaud it. Because I think that the, you know, the drumbeat and the noise over great things can drown out, you know, people who want to do bad or do badly. You know, that when we are in a position to celebrate the great things that are happening, the good things that are happening, we encourage more of it. And so I want to see us do that more. You know, I certainly do it. I do it myself. You know, I am always applauding. I applaud my friends. I applaud myself. Yeah.

Myself on the back all the time, because I really do want to see more encouragement of each other and of humanity out here. It's such an important point. I'm really glad you said that. And the positive reinforcement is really, really, really important. If you want to change one person's behavior, or if you want to help catalyze a cultural shift, you can't just be smashing the dog on the head with a newspaper for everything. Like you, like there has to be some element of shaping the behavior you want with positive encouragement. It's just like based, if you look at science, you look at evolution, you look at any, any sort of observable phenomenon that, that is a necessary ingredient. You can't just get it done by whacking someone on the head,

because then they'll just learn, they'll develop some type of learned helpful, hopelessness or opt out. Right. Which you see quite a bit, unfortunately, right now is a lot of people opting out of these conversations completely. And, uh, but if you, if, if in addition to, or instead of just getting upset, you also get motivated, right. And sort of be decide what you're for, not just what you're against. I mean, I do think, like you said, you can change a lot more than you would expect. And for instance, we mentioned Arianna Huffington before. One of her favorite books is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. And so she and I have talked about this because you can not only change external circumstances, right? But even if you change external circumstances in some respect, you'll never be totally in control of everyone else's responses.

But you can cultivate the ability in yourself to become more emotionally resilient. Let's say a little less hair trigger. And that helps you to be a more effective agent for change. Well, I want to let you get to your evening. This is so much fun for me. Is there any ask, just with all the people listening, do you have any final words, suggestions, or an ask for the audience. Oof. Man, that's a big one. Thank you so much for having me, by the way.

Of course. This is so amazing. And it's been such a great conversation. You know, I feel like we could keep talking for hours. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll try to give TK a run for his money with our... I know, right?

We'll have a nine-hour conversation. Exactly, exactly. Well, you know what? I, you know, as a great poet TLC would say, I ain't too proud to beg, you know? I'm not too proud to beg for support, you know? This is, I am constantly in need of support, you know? I think sometimes we see people achieving and we think they have it all figured out. I have a lot of things figured out, but I do appreciate support. I am inspired by people.

I love to hear about the great things that people are doing, but I also like to be encouraged myself. And so if you see me in the world or you see me on social media, I would appreciate a word of encouragement. And that's what I ask. Hear, hear. Well, like your moral support with the roles in the mornings way back in the day. Today is the day. Today is the day. Today is the day. Today is the day. And people can find you on Twitter, Instagram, at BadassBose, that's B-O-Z. And certainly can, with encouragement and great interest, watch how you continue to build as the chief brand officer of Reduber. And is there anywhere else that people can say hello or should learn more about what you're up to? Yeah, I'm pretty open on social media.

So you'll find me there. Engage, engage. Yes, being an executive, being a mommy, being a daughter, being a friend, all of the things. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time. This was so much fun for me. And I'm sure that my listeners will no doubt seek you out online. And if there's anything I can do to help, please do let me know.

But thank you so much for carving out a little bit of your very valuable time to have a conversation. I sincerely appreciate you. Today's the day. Today is the day. Go do it. And for everybody listening, as usual, you can find show notes, links to everything we talked about on tim.blog forward slash podcast, where you can find show notes for this episode and every other episode. And until next time, thank you for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again.

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