Light that sparkfire nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Systems Saved Me. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to bet on yourself.
To drop these value bombs I brought Ann Hyatt and the EO Fire Studios. Ann is a Silicon Valley veteran who worked directly for CEOs, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, and Eric Smith for Google for 15 years. She is now a consultant for CEOs across the globe. In today's financial, we'll talk about how to bet on yourself, recognize, own, and implement breakthrough opportunities. And the big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ann and our sponsors.
DTCPod, hosted by Ramon Barrios and Blaine Bolas, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. DTCPod is a podcast about all things direct to consumer. Ramon and Blaine cover everything from starting, growing, and optimizing e-commerce stores in DTC brands. If you're interested in the stories behind your favorite consumer brands, this podcast is for you. One recent episode on how the best brands are built is a must listen. Listen to DTCPod, wherever you get your podcasts.
And say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. I love this question. So I think most people would disagree with the fact that I think I got a lot of my advancements in success by doing some of the thankless, seemingly invisible tasks.
So some people might jump in and want to be seen and establish their leadership and have a lot of space in the room, but I really got a lot of my early success by being the one who is consistently there and reliable and earning the trust behind the scenes.
Well, I'm looking forward to tying that into the whole theme of this interview, which is betting on your self-fire nation, because at the end of the day, who better to bet on than you? So as I mentioned briefly in the intro and you worked directly for Jeff Bezos in the early 2000s,
meaning that you are literally at the foundation of the internet and e-commerce in general. So break it down for those of us that were either still in diapers or just like not really doing things in the internet e-commerce world during that time frame. What the heck was that like? Very much like riding full speed in a roller coaster while leaning out and building the track in front of us at the same time. It was a lot of just make it up as you go, uh, Wild West of the internet, but also, you know,
some of the most learning and influential moments of my life came in those very earliest years of my career. I mean, working for Jeff Bezos was my very first job out of undergrad, like first real job. I want you to walk us into like how you got that job. Like, where were you? Were you on Craigslist? And you're like, okay, this guy says he's working off of a desk, you know, that has a table door and like, what happens? So I was studying at the University of Washington for my undergraduate degree.
And this was in 2002. So I was coming out of university just after the dot com bust. And Seattle's a very tech heavy city, even back in the early 2000s. So most of the economy had disappeared seemingly overnight. So I and all of my classmates, we did not really have a lot of opportunities upon graduation. So while I was a student, I was working at the European Union Center on campus.
And the director of my program asked me what I was going to do. And my answer was I have no idea because I'd sent out a million resumes and not even got a phone screen interview. And his wife was working and recruiting at Amazon. And that's literally the only reason I thought to apply there. The story of how he got hired is a lengthy one. It took nine months in order to get my job there. But yeah, honestly, I'm so glad that that original economic dot com bus crisis happened because it changed the course of my life.
Yeah, you and I are definitely of the same time frame because that's when I was graduating. Alternatively, I actually did ROTC in college. So I knew exactly what I was doing. So I was going literally to war. I mean, I was the senior class of 2002 that was the first class of commission officers post 9-11. So I knew that I was going into the army and going real deal, holy field. But I will say, of course, all of my friends that were not in ROTC, which was a lot.
We're going through those same struggles. I mean, there was nothing around. The economy was in disarray. A lot of people just think to the 2007-08 financial crisis when they think of recent times. But that was a bad time, too, back in the early 2000s, that things were really up in the air. It's a really interesting time frame to talk about. What's really interesting is you leveraged that, which you did with Jeff, which I also want to tie into a little bit as we move forward.
and to helping build Google into literally the dominant force in our daily lives. And you spent 12 years at that company. So talk to us a little bit, you know, about the, you know, quick kind of transition from Amazon, the early years into what you did with Google and what that story is all about. Yeah. So I spent three years at Amazon and then originally moved to California to do a PhD at Berkeley.
But after a year in my graduate program, Google came recruiting because now, and especially back then, tech is kind of a small world. And yes, so I, like many Googlers, I'm a PhD dropout and spent, I like that you laugh at is 12 years, because really in tech, 12 years at a tech company is like 1,000 years. It's like dinosaur years. So the only reason that I could stay at a company, especially one that innovative and fast moving,
for that long was I really had to reinvent myself in kind of three-year cycles. My job description, even if my title didn't change, my job responsibilities were drastically different than the period before it. So to be in that kind of innovative environment that's constantly disrupting itself, you yourself as an individual have to do the same for your career and your skills and not become complacent and comfortable. What's one of your favorite stories from that era?
So my first role at Google was actually working for Marissa Meyer. This is before she went on to become CEO of Yahoo. And Marissa at the time was the vice president in charge of search products and user experience, which is a long title that really meant we got to build really cool stuff. And other people figured out how to monetize it. But around 2008, we were at this period where the iPhone was just coming out. We're getting the app store. We had just launched a product that probably no one remembers but me called iGoogle.
which was kind of the precursor to what our smartphones do for us now, which is where you have all these apps back then. It was widgets where you could access all of your usual information in a single place, like your weather and your email and your SMS and that kind of thing. And so we just launched iGoogle, which had been three years in the making to really get some traction. We finally had this great launch event. We partnered with big fashion designers, did this big launch event in New York. And that's when Apple
originally created their app store just months later, which decimated the entire relevance of what we just put all of our work into. And I think while that was a really painful exercise, it taught me a really vital lesson, which was not to fall in love with your solution to the problem. You really need to fall in love with the problem you were trying to solve. And if you remain in love with the problem you're trying to solve, you don't mind being disrupted in whatever the most innovative solution to that problem is.
As Stephen King calls it in writing, his book called On Writing, he's being willing to kill your darlings, being willing to let go of something you put your blood, sweat, and tears into you for so many years and jump into the next potential solution to that problem.
Well, first off, you're talking to my heartstrings with Stephen King, a fellow manor. I mean, we both hail from the great state of Maine, the way life should be. And I do love that phrase, don't fall in love with the solution to the problem. Just fall in love with a problem itself. What are some of your other top lessons that you learned working for not one, not two, but three high impact CEOs over your career?
I have been so privileged to work with some of the smartest people in the world, not only those three, but all the cast of characters that evolves in that circle. If I had to really boil down 15 years of life-changing experiences, maybe I can pick one favorite lesson learned from each of those three. So from Jeff Bezos, one of my favorite things I learned from him was about how to hire spectacular teams. I find a lot of companies focus on those traditional elements of your business plan, which is
product market fit and what you're going to produce and how you're going to get it out into market. But not enough people focus on the question of who and surrounding themselves with the right team, the right people in the right seats at the right time. So Jeff taught me this lesson actually when I was leaving, after three years when we were trying to hire my replacement, I was kind of in a panic because we didn't have somebody hired that I could train and replace and I couldn't change the start date of my PhD program. And so I was trying to convince Jeff to reconsider some of the candidates that he had discarded.
And he could not be swayed by that. And he said to me, he said, Anne, I am only going to hire people that I have to hold back, not push forward. And I have used that for the 13, now 15 years now since every single candidate that I've considered hiring and I interviewed thousands of Google and now for my own company.
And I love that only higher people that you have to hold back, not push forward. Cause that energy exchange, especially when you're a startup and you're moving really fast is critical.
I love that. And Fire Nation, it kind of reminds me of this great quote by Kevin Kelly, which is, enthusiasm is worth 25 IQ points. You want people that are literally horses at the starting gate. They just want to be off to the races and you're going to have to like, again, try to hold them back, not push them forward because you don't want to be sitting there trying to prod them forward. When you're running this company, you want to be like people that are off to the races. So what's number two in?
So number two, from Marissa Meyer, I learned that being ready to do something or taking on a new task or a new responsibility doesn't mean being ready to be perfect at it. I am a natural perfectionist to a fault. That's not like I'm not trying to be cute about it. Like really, it could get in very much in my way. And it had helped me back in my early life. But Marissa taught me being ready for a challenge doesn't
me being ready to be perfect at it. So raise your hand for a project when you kind of have the basic context and you trust yourself to be smart enough to figure it out. Or when you have six out of the 10 qualifications for a role instead of 10 out of 10, but really constantly stretch the confines of your experiences, your expertise, your confidence in yourself and be willing to just throw your hat in the ring and trust yourself to be smart enough to figure it out on the way.
Being ready doesn't mean being ready to be perfect at it. I mean, Fire Nation really absorb those words. And you may think this is a little harsh, but I mean, this is a true belief in mind. And Fire Nation's heard me say it before, but I actually believe that the word perfection and I'm just trying to perfect this is actually a word for cowardness. And you're actually being a coward. Because I believe that people
who say that their perfectionists are actually hiding behind that word because they're scared to launch their idea themselves out into the world. So they're just saying a word that's accepted by a lot of people, which is, oh, I'm just a perfectionist. It's just not ready yet. It'll be ready soon. No, you're just a coward. You're scared. You're fearful of that thing being judged by the world and you know, I'm being perfect at it. And that's why you're hiding behind this word perfection and perfect, but you're actually a coward. And I will say, listen, I'm raising my hands. I have been a coward.
multiple times in my life. When I launched this podcast 10 years ago, I hid behind the word perfectionism for over a month and it cost me dearly and I am adamant to say that listen, it's okay to try to be perfect and to think that you might, you know, have some perfectionism traits. But at the end of the day, you need to get out from that cowardice mindset at some point sooner than later and get it out into the world. And I know you wanted to give some feedback there. Oh, I absolutely agree. In fact, you remember
Mind me, I can't remember where I heard this, but it stuck with me ever since where they said, if you don't look back at the original launch and are embarrassed at the quality of it, you waited too long. Read Hoffman, LinkedIn. Thank you. Yes. Read Hoffman, genius. Obviously it should be him. And I think that's so true. I mean, Google and Amazon are perfect examples of that. If you go back and look at their original logos or the original website, it's comical.
But if you wait for it to be perfect, as you're saying, you've waited far too long. You've been cowardly. And the world needs it now. I really, one of my favorite things about working at Google was learning the value of launching it when it's at about 80%, and allowing the users to tell us how they wanted to interact with it, which is often different than what we had anticipated, and then do those polishing to make it fit what the market is needing right now. But no, it is harsh, but I agree with you. Perfection is often
actually just cowardice masked by. But listen, and I want to be clear too, like it's not a bad thing to lay myself as a coward from time to time. Because this is a human trait, like we are scared, we are fearful, we have cowardice tendencies, that's why we're still here today. Because you know, we were like doubting the fact of going outside at night, you know, when
It was dark and cold out because there might be a saber to tiger. We were scared. We were cowards that time and that kept us alive over the years. Here we are today. Well, guess what? We have different things that are actually out there in the world. They're not saber to tigers and are going to kill us. And so that's why at some point we have to shed this
hide. We have to shed the shield that we're holding of quote-unquote perfectionism and just realize that we're being scared and cowardice. But hey, it's part of being a human being. Now let's rise above and let's move forward and fire nation. You're going to get to hear number three when we get back from thinking our sponsors.
Marketers have never been spread so thin. Trust me, I feel it too. Between creating content, launch campaigns, journeying leads, nurturing your prospects, and more, you barely have a second to breathe, let alone do your best marketing. But I've got some great news. There's a better way to do things, and it's with the help of HubSpot and Breeze. It's new built-in AI. When you combine the power of HubSpot's marketing hub and content hub, you can have your best quarter every quarter. No more guessing what's working or what's not.
and no more switching between multiple platforms just to manage your workload. HubSpot's breeze helps you instantly remix your content, gives you lead scoring to shine a light on your best potential customers, and an AI curated analytic suite for reports and KPIs. Add this to co-pilots and agents to automate your tasks, and you've got yourself one powerful platform, making your life easier, getting your results faster, and better connecting you to all your data all in one place.
Stop spreading yourself thin and start making major moves with HubSpot. Visit hubspot.com slash marketers to learn more. So Anne, we're back. What is that third lesson that you learned over your time? The third lesson is one that I learned from Eric Schmidt. The first three years I worked for him at Google, he was still CEO. And then he transitioned into becoming executive chairman. And Eric had this plaque on his desk at Google that read
if at all possible say yes. Now, if at all possible say yes is something I saw on a daily basis, but I didn't really fully appreciate what that meant to him until this transition period. When Eric became executive chairman, he had never been a full-time chairman before, and Google had never had one before, so we really had to invent what that role meant, what did success look like, what did the company need from him, et cetera. And he started by doing a full listening tour, rather than pretending that he was smarter than everyone else
knew what they needed. We did a listening tour where we just stayed curious. We said yes to invitations to do things far outside of his expertise, to sit at tables where he was not the smartest person in the room, which is a very high bar, by the way, because he's absolutely one of the smartest people on the planet. And so when possible say yes is not about overwhelming yourself or not delegating. In fact, it's the opposite.
It's being smart enough to free yourself up so that you can be in those rooms and stretch your understanding and constantly disrupt your skills and your abilities so that you can say yes to new opportunities and be ready for what your life, your company, your team needs from you next. And I would say insatiable curiosity is what runs very strongly through his veins and I have tried to adopt into my own lifestyle.
When possible, say yes. How can you apply that to your life, Fire Nation? Now, let's call a spade a spade. We live in a new world. What pivots are you seeing global CEOs making during this time? I don't want to pretend that this hasn't been a horrific experience for us all. But now in my post Google life,
I do global consulting for CEOs, literally on five different continents across the globe. And during the pandemic, I've had the privilege of watching what the common denominators are between those who succeeded and thrived during this time and those who really went down in smoke. And I'm very happy to say all my clients have really accelerated their learnings and their impact in their market. And I think that common denominator is twofold. One, it's around constant, consistent communication.
Uh, cause when we're not in the same room together, your voice can get lost in the noise. And so my CEOs who really, I'm not talking doubled to their communication. I'm talking like 10 X communication, their availability to their teams were able to pivot without losing momentum or the overwhelm. And the second is consistency, really showing up for your clients, your customers listening, being available. In fact, one of my pro tips that worked across the board, across all these different industries that I was consulting for.
was when executives had open door policies. They literally had what I called office hours, just like when you're in university, where anyone in the company could drop in for a quick one minute conversation, something that didn't merit 30 minutes on the calendar, or you would have been too bashful to ask their assistant for time to discuss, kind of replicate those water cooler moments. And that's something even now as companies are coming back to being in a hybrid model, that they are continuing. So that was another pro tip. And then the last, I think, is really about clarity.
of being very clear in the direction from the top and not assuming that everyone understands what you're pivoting into and why, but bring, I call it, show them the math. Show them the math of here's what I'm solving for. Here are the different elements and this is why I'm asking you to pivot into what we're doing. When you're consistent and you're clear, you're available and you offer that clarity, that is how we all pivot as a cohesive whole. And executives who haven't done that, I found they get lost in the overwhelm
People think they're moving the right needle forward and they're really addressing the old model rather than new one. But if you can just do that consistent, clear communication, things tend to work themselves out. Speaking of moving the needle forward, you published your first book during a pandemic. So what was that like? And then, of course, give us some details about the book and what Fire Nation needs to know about this.
I do not recommend writing and publishing a book during a pandemic. I did it too. That's number one. I actually it's kind of funny looking back. I had started this book. It's my first book. So very much learning everything the hard way as we all do when we try a new challenge. I had most of the first draft of the manuscript manuscript finished. I flew to the States to speak at South by Southwest on March 8th from Spain.
By the time I landed in Texas, Southwest Northwest had been canceled and then Spain promptly closed its border. I was stuck in the States and I couldn't get back. So I flew up to Seattle and spent the pandemic with my parents, which was such a wonderful silver lining. But that's where I was sitting in the bedroom that I had in high school.
Taking crisis consulting phone calls from all of my clients during the day, waking up at 4 a.m. for my Europeans and working until 9 or 10 p.m. with my American clients, and then trying to finish this manuscript to meet my deadline. So yeah, not the ideal writing circumstances. However, I do have to say that I'm really glad in terms of the timing that I still had time to rewrite it, because actually the published one is the third version of this manuscript, with very much the challenges of the pandemic in mind.
A lot of us are now plans A, B, and C might have disappeared. And how are we going to create opportunities for ourselves when options might appear limited? So this book is really written with three core demographics in mind. And I'm really pulling from my experiences across three different crises. You and I started our careers at the dot-com bust. We went through the 2008 economic crisis. This is now my third crisis. So in the third version of the book, which is published now,
It's really about how do we put ourselves in the driver's seat of our career, regardless of what is happening around us that might feel outside of our control. So the three audiences in mind are those who are now coming into the workforce for the very first time in this crazy and work environment that we're in. Second is those who are mid-career, who are looking to be seen as leaders. They want to get that big client account for the first time. They want to get a big promotion. They want to own a big project or work on something cross collaborative. How do you establish that thought leadership and get seen as a leader in your organization?
And then my third are people like me who have turned their side hustle into their main hustle are startup founders or entrepreneurs or even entrepreneurs. Within your company, you're probably seeing some opportunities for things that your company might not have invested in before or given you permission to try out. And now we're realizing that they need to be more innovative and progressive. And so I'm really wrote this book with those three categories in mind of how can you empower yourself, create a roadmap where you feel more in control and less of a victim to circumstance.
super powerful stuff, Fire Nation. And I mean, I can tell you having written the book recently as well to sit down and to rewrite a manuscript. I mean, man, that is just commit. It's horrendous. It's horrendous on a lot of levels because you're literally like, you know, it's like killing your babies on words or on pages, I should say, because you burst those words on the pages. And now you're going back and you're saying, all right, you're never gonna see the light of day because I'm redoing this. So I definitely commend you for that.
Let's wrap this up by you sharing the one takeaway. You really want to make sure a Fire Nation gets from everything that you and I talked about here today. Give us the best place a Fire Nation can go, learn more about your book, pick up a copy, and then we'll say goodbye. I hope that the one main takeaway from this conversation is that there's no right way. There's no one path towards success that you yourself are going to find that for you in a way that's meaningful.
The common denominator I've seen, the beautiful silver lining out of this pandemic is people returning to their core personal values. So I hope that each of you will have a conversation with yourself about what you value most, what you want to be putting into this world and what you want to use this one precious life that we have. And what are you going to contribute? Realize that today you're creating your living legacy and use that lens for how you're making decisions right now. That on yourself is really based on that premise of helping you discover each of these things.
So to find out more information, I would love to welcome you on the book's website, which is betonyourselfbook.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all the usual places, Ann Hyatt or Ann R Hyatt on Twitter. And I would really love to answer your questions. Please reach out. I want this to be more of a conversation than a one way storytelling.
Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you've been hanging out with AH and JLD today, so keep up the heat, and head over to eofire.com, type in, A-N-N, in the search bar. Her show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about here today. Best show notes in the biz. Bet onyourselfbook.com, that's your direct call to Action Fire Nation.
And Ann, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, value of Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks very much. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Ann and Fire Nation. Are you ready to rock your own podcast? Well, if so, check out our free podcasting course where I teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free. Freepodcastcourse.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side.
DTCPod, hosted by Ramon Barrios and Blaine Bolas, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. DTCPod is a podcast about all things direct to consumer. Ramon and Blaine cover everything from starting, growing, and optimizing e-commerce stores in DTC brands. If you're interested in the stories behind your favorite consumer brands, this podcast is for you. One recent episode on how the best brands are built is a must listen. Listen to DTCPod, wherever you get your podcasts.
