Tiger Sisters - The Subtle Power Moves You Need Today to Get Ahead

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to another special episode of Tiger Sisters, our AMA. Yay! And as you guys can see, we are in a new location. We are in the Spotify LA office and we're recording in this gorgeous set. Thank you so much Spotify. Spotify for creators and Trace Gaynor and Travis Morningside. We love you. We're having us.

Starting point is 00:00:22 Yay. Isn't it beautiful? I love colors. Okay. So today's topic, the topic du jour, is power. We talk about money, power, and love. And so we're doing a couple of AMAs focused on each topic. Power, guys, you guys asked us, and today we're answering, power is a tricky subject.

Starting point is 00:00:40 I think a lot of people shy away from talking about it. It can feel a little bit ick. And not everyone is comfortable speaking about it. But these are the things that we've learned and we want to share with you regarding power in your life, in your relationships, and in the workplace. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of our AMA. It's going to be a little bit different, a little bit zesty, a little bit juicy. And we're so excited because you guys submitted your questions for us and we're answering them today.

Starting point is 00:01:07 I'm Gene. I'm Sherey. And we're the Tiger Sisters. We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big Sisters. And we are a top business podcast on Spotify where we talk about money, power, and love. Okay. So the first question is, Sheree, what is your secret power that's not obvious? at first glance. I love this question and my answer is that I'm really able to read a room.

Starting point is 00:01:47 And I know that sounds like a little bit obvious on the surface, but it's helped me so much in like work conversations, in personal life relationships. If you're able to pick up on cues that people are leaving nonverbal cues specifically in body language, in, you know, visual stuff, how are they like moving? How are they responding? You can better decode the situation to know how you should respond to them. And a lot of people don't realize that, like, there are certain things that you can do to make you more powerful if you can read the room. For example, at work, if someone is presenting their idea to the entire group, even if I'm in Zoom, I can see people's body language. Like, are they widening their eyes? Are they, like, you know, distracted, typing on their

Starting point is 00:02:34 laptop, whether in person or on video camera? Like, I can pick up on those to know. engage what everyone else is feeling. Yes, it is exhausting at times. I can't really turn it off. It's just something that I'm naturally attuned to. But if I know that like 80% of the room is not supportive of this project, then I can figure out like ways if I want to like push the project forward. How do I position it to address their concerns? Or I can even call out. I'm like, Andy, it seems like you're concerned about this. Is that right? Like I'd love to hear more about your opinion. Oh, wow. So you would bring it into the conversation live on the spot. I can. Or I'm like, hey, or like maybe not even call it out so much if you're like a little bit nervous about that,

Starting point is 00:03:18 but you can like bring it to like, hey, Andy, do you have any questions? If you notice that like their body language reflects something. Yeah. Or if you know someone disapproves it, you can avoid them and then like, you know what I mean? Like actually not have them join the conversation and then talk about them. Talk about it with them after the fact. Separately. Yeah. I think, yeah, either one works. It's just one being very attuned. And two, you now have more information that perhaps other people might not have. So then you can act on that information however you'd like in the moment or after. I think a way to develop this skill is to really empathize with all the other people in the room. Like better understanding what are their concerns, what are their motivations,

Starting point is 00:04:01 and then just really noticing, like, what does their body language tell you? Mm-hmm. What this makes me think about is actually the fact that now there's AI and, like, tools to help you do this. To decode. Exactly. Yeah. One of our sponsors, read AI. Read AI.

Starting point is 00:04:20 Shout out. Actually, what they do with their technology is they read the sentiment of each, like, video call that you're doing. And then they can call out when the sentiment is high or low to actually. to actually help you action on it, especially if you're like in a sales being or something. Yeah. That's so funny that it's like now technology is developing ways for people to like learn how to attune themselves the way that you're naturally attuned. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:45 I think I've just had a lot of practice as like a child like reading other people's emotions. Hypervigilance. Yeah. Hypervigilance. We honestly won't go into that today. But you should know that's where that comes from. But it honestly has become a superpower form. me. How can people work on the skill themselves without childhood trauma?

Starting point is 00:05:10 My answer is going to be something that you guys don't expect at all. And it's going to be reading fiction books. Oh, I was going to say something similar. No way. I was going to say watching TV. Watching, yeah, watching TV. I think a lot of drama shows actually, like Great Anatomy. or even like reality TV or succession oh yeah yeah which is a form of I watch a lot of reality TV no when you watch reality TV you can start to learn why did people act this way like obviously the situations are manufactured they're not actually reality but people are reacting to it in a true way yeah that's like true to their nature so like why did one person act this way and why another person not and like how did things unfold and like how did you expect to unfold how did the characters or the people in the show expected to unfold versus like how it actually

Starting point is 00:06:05 plays out if you are diagnosed as someone who is on the spectrum or you just have a hard time reading people's reactions their faces and just understanding their emotion just like it comes very intuitively to me and I know that's not where everyone that's not everyone's starting baseline a very real recommendation is to start watching reality TV, to start reading more fiction, and watch more like drama on TV. Because then you get to understand people's reactions. You get to understand why people reacted that way. And you can pick up on more subtle micro emotions that you might not notice already. I have another recommendation. Another recommendation from me is to actually go out and put yourself in situations where you're interacting with people who are different than the people you normally interact with.

Starting point is 00:06:55 Like go out and meet people who are from different backgrounds who like think differently than you who are just like have a wide variety of interactions so that you can sort of build that almost like library of interactions in your head so that you can start to better attune yourself to different types of people. Yeah. I think that's one way to really build deep empathy if you don't feel like you have that. library in your head already. You can read fiction. You can meet people in real life to understand people and what they've gone through. I think memoirs are also fantastic. Yeah. I mean, we want to start a book club. This answer is too long, but this is kind of like a crazy episode. So like we'll just let it, we'll let it ride. But like also I really want to start a tiger sister's book club. Like you guys know-in is an avid reader. She loves reading. She's the biggest nerd and

Starting point is 00:07:53 she will read until 5 a.m. Oh yeah, beyond. She will literally not sleep and read. I'll pull an all-nighter for either reading or partying. One or the other. There's no in between. There's no sleeping and there's no in between. Or binge watching TV. Or binge watching TV. We all have her vices and if her vices binge reading, I guess that's okay. Gene, you have 50 patents in AI and machine learning. You went to Dartmouth and Harvard Business School. You were a product executive at Snapchat, you worked in finance on Wall Street, and you've had an amazing career. And you're my sister and co-host of this top 10 business podcast on Spotify. I could go on and on, but I have a question for you from Manuela Lito. How did you come to the

Starting point is 00:08:41 decision to quit your job and start a podcast? Was it scary? Well, Manuel, I'll tell you, it was the hardest decision of my life, or one of the hardest decisions. But I realized that if I stayed in that position, I would be settling. You had the money. You had your dream role, but you didn't feel, but you thought you were settling. Yeah. I mean, we talked about recently on an episode about the concept of zone of excellence versus zone of genius. And the idea is that you can be in your zone of excellence, but it's not something, you're not doing something that gives you life or gives you energy, gives you joy, gives you just that like joie de vivre. meaning purpose. Yeah, exactly. I'm not saying that you can't always be in your zone of excellence

Starting point is 00:09:28 and that the zone of excellence is not something to strive for. But I think for me and for probably a lot of people who are watching this, we are the type of people that if you are in the zone of excellence for too long, you start to feel like you're settling. You start to feel like you're stagnant. You start to feel like you are just not operating at your highest potential and like contributing to the world. And that's exactly how I started to feel. I mean, I was at Snapchat for a very long time, six and a half years. And I will give a lot of credit to, you know, the leadership at Snap. Over the course of my time there, I worked in many different roles. And I was given the opportunity to do incredible things, like running hundreds of millions of dollars of M&A, running massive

Starting point is 00:10:13 teams, standing up entire new initiatives at the company. And like, I think the reason why I stayed so long is because I was able to learn so many different things and do so many different things, even within my role as a product leader. But I think ultimately, by the end, the way that I felt is that I was squarely in the zone of excellence, but not in my zone of genius. I wasn't doing something that I felt like I was using my special brand of genius, which everyone has to help the world to really do something that was meaningful and that I wanted to spend, you know, 80 hours a week or whatever it was on. Yeah. And that's why zone of excellence is so dangerous. Because just because you end up being good at something doesn't necessarily mean it's what gives

Starting point is 00:10:59 you purpose or meaning joy and fulfillment. And it's, it's like dangerous because if you are good at something, like you derive a lot of. Yeah, you get a lot of fulfillment from it. You just feel when you're good at something you feel satisfied yeah you feel satisfied but i think over a long period of time if you're not like learning and evolving like all the time i feel like you just get bored yeah it's like when you if you have like a machine or a knife or something just doing a repetitive motion like if a knife is just like always chopping the same vegetables on the chopping board and the knife never gets sharpened then that knife gets dull yeah i feel like um you guys like my metaphor i don't know why I just came up with that metaphor.

Starting point is 00:11:41 It also depends on the type of person that you are too. Yeah. But I think in general, most people like new to be challenged. I think people like to rise up to a challenge. I think it's in human nature to want to be good at something. Yeah. So yeah, I think it's really interesting, the zone of excellence versus the zone of genius. And that's not to say that the goal of achieving the zone of excellence is not a super, like,

Starting point is 00:12:06 veritable and worthy goal. because you're not always going to be in your zone of excellence. Being zone of excellence means you've worked in something and you've honed your skill in it for a very long time. So I think even reaching the zone of excellence is a great goal to have. But the question is once you've reached it and you've been in it for a long time, then you start to feel like it's time to do something new. It's time for me to sort of like break out of this and then enter the zone of genius. This episode of Tiger Sisters is brought to you by Read AI.

Starting point is 00:12:40 Yes, and it's not just another note taker. It's like an AI co-pilot that can read, transcribe, and summarize your meeting notes. It reads the energy and vibe of your meetings to give you the next smart steps. I'm obsessed because it's like having a chief of staff that manages your inbox, your work meetings, basically your entire work life. Yeah, last week I missed a meeting and I was able to type what did I miss, And Read AI was able to give me the top takeaways, the key points, and also the sentiment. It was kind of like magic.

Starting point is 00:13:12 And it works across Gmail, Teams, Notion, Salesforce, Zoom, basically wherever you do your work. And you know me, I never give apps access to my Gmail because that's super private, but I actually made an exception for Read AI because I personally know the founder, David Schim, because we used to work together at Snapchat. And you guys might remember we actually interviewed David Schim on season three of Tiger Sisters when he was talking about his new startup, which is actually Reed AI. And now Reed has over 4 million users. Wow.

Starting point is 00:13:42 Wow. And they're giving Tiger Sisters listeners a 30-day enterprise trial, which is worth $30 and that does not require a credit card to sign up. We don't know how long this 30-day free offer is going to last. So if you're at all curious, try it right now. Go to www. reid.a.i slash Tiger Sisters for a free 30-day extended trial, and you don't need to put in your time. your credit card. Sign up through our link because then they'll know that we send you. We're obsessed

Starting point is 00:14:09 with Read AI and we think you're going to love it too. And we're back. Okay, so our next question comes from listener Nainika, who asks, how are you so productive all the time? I love this question because I can talk about productivity for hours and days. I think, of course, there are tools and frameworks to help being productive, like Atomic Habits, great book. Cal Newport has an amazing book also that talks about work. Of course, there are frameworks, and I could just like launch into those and talk about them. There are tools like read AI that help you with productivity. But honestly, I think my answer is more holistic. And the reason why I'm so productive in my career and in like the more professional sense is twofold. So one, I've found my zone of genius and zone of excellence.

Starting point is 00:14:54 So I've really found something that I'm excited to work on every single day. And I hate to say it because it sounds so cliche, but it is my passion and I'm able to monetize from it, which is I think a very important distinction. If I had a passion that I wasn't able to monetize on, trust me, it would be a lot harder. But I found something that I love to do and honestly a problem that breaks my heart so that when I get to work on it every single day, it is so fulfilling. And like, I don't even want to procrastinate because like the more I procrastinate, the more that I am not achieving my own personal mission, vision and like my God-even reason why I'm on this earth. So like I feel like a deep, deep internal desire to do this thing. So that's one of the reasons why I'm more productive,

Starting point is 00:15:33 because I've done a lot of experimentation and figured out what I'm good at and something that will help the world that makes me feel good to work on every day. The second reason why I feel very productive in my life is that I view productivity as something that impacts all the different pillars in my life. So if I'm not sleeping right, I know my next day is not going to be as productive as I can be. If I'm not eating right, I feel like crap. My next day is not going to be as productive. If I'm feeling, you know, there's like some problem in my like relationship or something like either romantic or just like friend social relationship. Like I know I'm not going to be as productive. So I make an active effort to work on every single pillar of my life. And I can't do it all at once. So sometimes it's a

Starting point is 00:16:18 little bit of everything and making some adjustments. But I feel so productive when the other pillars in my life are going right. And so that also means going to therapy. That means knowing yourself. That means eating healthy. It means prioritizing yourself. I don't really. I try not to drink alcohol because it honestly lowers my productivity. So I've cut that out going to the gym, doing what feels good to you. Now that I'm in my 30s, I feel like I'm more in control of my life, my habits. And then that means I can control the outcomes. Okay. Let's do our last question for this AMA. And it comes from Shruti C. who asks, how do you make meaningful friends who are as motivated, aligned, and passionate as you? Exclamation point.

Starting point is 00:17:03 Such a good question. So good. Well, do you and I talk about like friendships and relationships all the time? Yeah, it was one of our earliest episodes, actually. We did a whole episode about friendship. Yeah. You are the product of the five people closest to you. So right now, mini exercise, go into your life, take stock.

Starting point is 00:17:21 Who are the five people in your life that you spend the most time with? It could be family. It could be teachers. it could be friends, like whoever it is, co-workers, who are you spending the most time with in your life and who are you closest to and speaking to the most? Take stock of them right now because you will become more like them every single day. Guys, I can't believe she just did a mini exercise, like, off rip. Off the cuff mini exercise. Off rip. Off rip, dude. That's... Take stock of the five closest people to you. And then what? It's really helpful. If you,

Starting point is 00:17:55 You can go through this exercise and write down one thing you admire about this person. Oh, that's so good. I've actually done this before because, you know, it's like exercise. You can see the thing you admire about them. It makes you appreciate your friend more, of course. But also if you're having trouble, like thinking of something that you admire about this person, do they really deserve to be in your inner circle? Your energy is the most precious thing in this world.

Starting point is 00:18:20 Your energy, your time, who you spend time with is so important. So take stock of that and it's okay if it's time to recalibrate. Yeah. Fellow podcast guest Taylor Swift actually said something recently about how she was like, my energy. She was like, think of your energy as a luxury good. I'm paraphrasing here. Did you see this clip?

Starting point is 00:18:40 Yeah, of course. She was like, think of your energy as a luxury good. Not everyone can necessarily afford it. And like by afford, she doesn't mean monetarily. She means like energetically. Not everyone can match you energetically. That's actually something I've learned recently. And it's like hearing myself say that, it sounds very woo-woo.

Starting point is 00:18:58 Like it sounds kind of weird, but it's so true. Like I feel it deep in my soul. And now I know it too. Especially if you're a giver. Like Gene is a giver. And I'm sure a lot of people who are watching this podcast right now, you're just like a giver in your life. A giver of time, a giver of energy, just like generous, super generous. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:18 And if people aren't matching your spirit of generosity, like that. That's just not a fruit. It can be a, it might not be a fruitful relationship. Yeah. And it can actually be very draining on you because I think we've talked about before the concept of like if you are naturally, you know, your generosity level, whether like Sherey said, it's your time, your energy, your empathy, you're even like listening to someone and like, you know, holding their emotions in your heart and your hand.

Starting point is 00:19:49 If your natural level of that is at an eight and someone else's natural. level of that is a three in terms of giving yeah in terms of giving and you're just always going to be at an eight they're always going to be at a three it's really hard to meet in the middle and if that's something where over time you feel like you need someone who's at your level or at the same amount as you you're just going to end up being really disappointed in that relationship I think different seasons for different reasons is something that jean says all the time yeah and now that I'm in my 30s and reflecting on my 20s. The thing that I wish I knew when I was in my early 20s is that you don't need a hundred friends. Like I think when I was, you know, in college and a new grad, I was so

Starting point is 00:20:35 concerned with the number of friends that I had, not like a sorority sisters. Well, it wasn't even like a specific number. Like I'm not saying that. But you know what I mean? Like you just want to be around like people all the time. Yeah. You want to feel well liked. It's important to you to feel well liked. It's important for you to feel popular. Even if you're not someone who like, considers yourself popular, it's still just like important for your, your ego. Like when I was young, like it was younger. It was just like so much more important to me. But I think like as I'm in my 30s now, like the circle just gets so much tighter of like who are the people. And I mean, my interpretation of friendship has also changed too. Because like I don't need

Starting point is 00:21:18 a hundred friends. I just need like five to ten. Like ride or dies in my life, people, guys and girls who see so deeply into my soul make me feel love and cared for and like can hold my emotions the way that I hold theirs. There's, I think it's actually quite literally impossible to find a hundred people who will meet me as deeply as I meet them. And I think it's really hard to maintain a hundred relationships. It takes up so much time in the way that I want to do friendships. So I think five to ten friends is all I can personally manage. And with that mindset, I can stop putting so much pressure on like even new friends that I meet. You know what I mean? I'm like, you're not going to be my soulmate friend. That's fine. Different friends for different reasons.

Starting point is 00:22:07 Dude, I saw this TikTok a while ago and I don't remember who posted it so I can't attribute it properly now but if someone ever sees it please attribute it for me but it was this woman who said in your life you will have people who are your friends your true friends you will have people who are your fans and you will also have people who are there to teach you a lesson yeah they're there to be a case study for you of some sort and maybe that case study takes you a long time to learn maybe that case study takes you a short time to learn but like these are the three categories and i was like shook off. I was like, what?

Starting point is 00:22:46 Because I think very naturally a lot of us, especially women, go through life, naturally bucketing people as friends. Like when you meet someone, I think I very easily default to be like, oh, my new friend. Yeah. But I think we should stop calling people our friends. Like people we like meet on a night out or, you know, go to a bar and you're with your friend's friend. Like I don't think those people are my friends and I should stop calling them.

Starting point is 00:23:10 They're my friends. They're my acquaintance. they're my peer but like I want to be using that word way more selectively now that I'm in my 30s guys she has been 30 for one month and she's said the phrase 10 times it feels good to be in my 30s what can I say it's her new identity it is I'm in my 30s now I like don't even want to mention it and she's like now that I'm in my 30s for 27 days exactly yeah and I think the second part of the question was like how do you how do you make meaningful friends who are as motivated line and passionate as you so it's like how do you actively do that like let's say you know

Starting point is 00:23:53 you're coming at it kind of from a position of abundance of being like I already have many people who I can choose from but like let's say you know you listen to this podcast and or you're listening to the podcast now and you kind of take stock of your own group of friends and you're like you know what of this mini exercise, these five people, I only have one person who meets this bar that you guys described. So how do I actually go out and make four more friends that I can surround myself with who are, you know, at the same level as me and have, let's see, what are the qualities that she said again? Motivated, aligned, and passionate. I think you go to the places where those people are. Go to the events that they're at.

Starting point is 00:24:36 Like whether they're networking events or like women's clubs. that are like that or like run clubs like what is the facet where you want to grow in and what are those people doing so I think if you want to become like a healthier person go to a run club meet those people because then they're there for that reason and then you can do that activity with them and then grow in that way if you're looking for like badass bitches to be friends with go to the networking events like there's a bunch of events that I see all the time in New York SF and L.A it's like women's entrepreneurship like groups they host these events sometimes they're free sometimes you do have to buy a ticket and pay for it but like you are paying for access to those people and

Starting point is 00:25:18 it gives you a reason to talk to them and if you can find people to you know that you actually have a genuine bond with like what a great outcome so what are the types of people you're trying to attract and where are they naturally going yeah i actually i really um connect with and like resonate with this question because I kind of feel like I'm in the process of doing this again myself just because I am somewhat newly single but I'm sort of coming out of a phase of my life for a really long time where 99% of my friends were couple friends and like I would do couple activities all the time with my ex-fiancee now I'm kind of like building up a new roster of friends who in addition to my previous friends I can do more like single person activities with and so one thing

Starting point is 00:26:05 thing I've done that's just really, like, tactical is that when I meet someone, like, a girl that I like, and I feel like-mindedness and, like, a positive energy between us, I'll follow up. And you said this too. You've said this too. Like, I'll actually be like, hey, want to get coffee sometime? Or, like, want to get lunch? Want to get dinner? Want to get drinks.

Starting point is 00:26:27 The power of the follow-up. And, like, sometimes it'll pan out. Sometimes it won't. But, like, you sort of, you've. put yourself out there. Yeah. And you've made that, you know, bid for attention or like you made that bid. And it's kind of a relationship.

Starting point is 00:26:43 Bit for a relationship. Exactly. Yeah. I feel good about that. Okay. So then you know what? Let's do like a power move or like your mini exercise for today. So your main takeaway for today is if there is someone who you've met that you feel

Starting point is 00:26:57 this like-mindedness with and you are interested in getting to know better, ask them out. Like in a non-romantic friendship way, in a platonic way. ask them out and ask to get coffee or lunch or dinner or drinks and then see how it goes. And write in the comments after you've done this because we want to support you and cheer you on. And honestly, asking someone out or asking someone to do an activity, it's like kudos to you for doing that. Oh, totally. It's putting yourself in a vulnerable place. Like maybe they won't respond or maybe they won't reject.

Starting point is 00:27:28 Like that's the worst possible scenario. But the best possible scenario, which is how I like normally think about it, is like a beautiful French. could blossom from this. So there's only really upside and there's like no ego involved, like whatever, just ask someone and I'm sure you will learn something from that. Yeah. And I know we're supposed to wrap up, but one thing I will say is one way you can go into thinking about it that we've talked about before is that different people are in different seasons

Starting point is 00:27:55 of their life. Sometimes people are open to new friendships because they have the capacity and they're in a certain time in their life where they are looking for new friendships, kind of like me. Other times they might not be open to new friendships because of X, Y, Z reasons. You have no idea. Like, they could be going through a medical thing. They could be going through, like, family issues. They could be going through, you know, investing deeply in their relationship.

Starting point is 00:28:17 You just don't know. And you're never going to know. Don't assume. Yeah. You're never going to know if you don't put yourself out there and make that bid. And conversely, if they say no or you kind of get like a not now, then you don't have to think that it's about you. Like they just might not be in their season and that's totally okay. There are so many other people out there who are like-minded and I'm sure excited to get to know you.

Starting point is 00:28:45 Thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of the Tiger Sisters. We hope you like this new AMA style and this new studio. Thank you Spotify and Spotify for creators. We'll catch you next time on the Tiger Sisters podcast. Bye.

Tiger Sisters - The Subtle Power Moves You Need Today to Get Ahead

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