Cultivating a Growth Mindset w/ Tatiana Quaife | builders podcast

0:0080 % of my success has been from my mindset, really like harnessing the power of my mind and then create an experience like the life that I'm wanting to create an experience.

0:15today on the pod i speak with tatiana kuife she is the founder of rising women we talk about her organization being deliberate about what you want from your career and her experiences as a marketing leader at procter and gamble disney and airbnb also in my weekly chat with marty beckerman we discuss the interesting origin story of M &M's candy and the curious study finding that angry people actually do better at certain types of work tasks. Thanks a lot.

0:48All right, I'm sitting down with Marty again in person for our weekly talk on the things he and his team are covering in the Bee newsletter. We're both wearing our party shirts this week. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree. Are we going out after this or what? Okay. So there are a couple of things you're focused on that I think are really interesting. One of them, I love when you sort of look at company histories and new startups and things like that. I'm not exactly sure what M &M's messaging is right now. It's like those walking, like animatronic M &Ms. But when I was growing up, the slogan was, melts in your mouth, not in your hand, right?

1:29Right. And that actually went back to the founding of M &M's or its origin story, as we talk about in the Bee newsletter, which was the Spanish Civil War. They were being rationed to British troops that had signed up to join. And the reason these chocolates were rationed to the troops, it was really hot and they needed chocolate that wouldn't melt. And so it was encased in a hard candy shell, which was like an amazing new invention. and a guy whose last name was Mars happened to be over there and saw these candies and realized I could make a fortune selling these to people who are not soldiers.

2:07And he and his extended family and descendants have made a fortune. What's their estimated net worth? They are, I believe, the third richest family in the U.S. worth between$93 and$126 billion dollars by spreading the good word of M &Ms and diabetes to the children of the world. Okay, right on. All right. Another thing that you were studying was angry people, or people with a chip on their shoulder. Well, you weren't studying it. The American Psychology Association studied it and found, I think - I lived in New York for 10 years. So that was studying angry people on a daily basis. All right. Yeah.

2:48And I'm in the Pacific Northwest, So I study passive aggressive. Yeah, it's sort of passive aggressive up there. New York is very like, if someone's angry, you're going to know. Just aggressive aggressive? Yeah, just aggressive aggressive. So anyway, like folks with chips on their shoulders in the workplace tend to perform better in a lot of ways. Is that right? Well, according to this study by the American Psychological Association, they do perform better at certain tasks. They had them doing puzzles, video games, and putting them in an angry mood, kind of priming them by talking about upsetting political issues, got them to actually perform better on these tests.

3:23But it kind of came with a warning that being angry all the time at the office might have some long-term consequences for your health and your office culture, believe it or not. Yeah, well, I believe it. I mean, definitely there's a tradeoff if you're making everyone else upset. that, well, maybe it creates a circle of anger, but I don't think that's what we want. You don't want to create a toxic environment where everyone's mad at each other, departments are mad at each other. That's not going to help. And it's not good for your own health in terms of your blood pressure. And basically just move to Los Angeles.

3:56That was how I addressed my New York-induced blood pressure. So if we're stereotyping New Yorkers as aggressive, aggressive pnw as passive aggressive what what's la just passive we're just passing here passive passive yeah okay all right that sounds good but not angry from behind being behind the wheel oh i guess there's the road rage yeah yeah yeah all right well i guess we don't need to label anyone else today thanks for chatting marty

4:32hi tatiana how are you good to see you Hi, Joan. I'm good. How are you? Good. I'm excited to talk to you today about your career and the organization you've started. Let's actually start there. So you're the founder of an organization. It's for high-achieving women professionals. It's called Rising Women. What prompted you to start the organization and what's its mission? Yes. Thank you for sharing. Rising Women is near and dear to my heart. What prompted the creation of it has been my own journey personally and what I've been going through and witnessing and supporting other women to go through.

5:07So that's where the inspiration came from. And Rising Women is really about inspiring and empowering by achieving women leaders to go inside of us to basically unlearn, remember and reclaim like our truth, our magic, our power, so we can rise within and create the change that we're here to create. And I'm really excited to go all in and launch because it's been calling me for a while now. I love that. When you say it's been calling you for a while, what are some of the seeds that made you say, I've got to do this? Yes, it's been, the seeds have been coming along as like, I don't know, breadcrumbs, if you will.

5:51And on my path, I started, you know, just coaching and mentoring women has just been like a big part of my career and my journey and started to notice as I was going through like my own inner journey of unlearning, remembering and rising that other women were going through the same thing. So as I started, you know, to coach and mentor other women, it really started to turn. something inside of me. And, you know, I went on a retreat for, you know, women leaders and the idea just came to me like a inspired idea and I could see it. It kind of had like a life of its own. And like, I just started to go for it and created, you know, a website and a mentorship program and newsletter and people has just been finding it too.

6:41So there's just been like an organic growth for it. And the calling of it has been, as I've been going through this inner journey to remember who I am and why I'm here to just really, especially this last year, just like step into it fully and own it and just go for it. I love it. So if someone, if someone's hearing this and, and they're saying, okay, I, this is something I might want to get, get started on or, or check it out. What, what would they expect? Someone who's, who is sort of like new to the organization? Yes, I would say check out our new website, risingwomensisterhood.com. We also have a page on Instagram, risingwomensisterhood.

7:21And I'm very active on LinkedIn, Tatiana Koi, if you can find it there. And over there, I have a newsletter called Rising Women. So there's a variety of different ways for you to learn more about what it is and how to get involved. And yeah, I would love to invite you to come check it out. Nice. And I'm going to ask you more about it, I think later on in our conversation, but I want to step backwards throughout your career and discuss some of the lessons you've learned along the way, because you have worked for some truly iconic brands, um, uh, Procter and Gamble, Walt Disney, and then maybe one of the biggest success towards the 21st century in air Airbnb.

8:00Um, and, and I, I, I joke when I communicate with you offline, it all started with fabric softener. So, um, so, so how did, how did you get the job at, at Procter & Gamble. What was the product, if people don't know just by that description, and what was your role there? Yeah, so great question. So I, you know, and just to maybe go a little bit back, like I'm originally from Brazil. I grew up there and then moved to the US to go to college and stayed and wanted to start my career in marketing. And coming out of undergrad as an international student, it was really hard, actually. not a lot of people wanted to hire me when I didn't really have a lot of experience, but too, as an international student, you know, their visa implications and whatnot.

8:44So my first job out of undergrad was actually in manufacturing, like in purchasing and supply chain, which is not what I desired. And I shared that because sometimes people see like our profiles like on LinkedIn and don't get that the road hasn't been a straight line. And there has been, you know, steps that one takes that actually build, you know, towards a path that we're desiring. So for me, it did not start in marketing and it did not start at a big company like Procter & Gamble. But I learned a lot of skills in that first role, like strategic thinking, negotiating, teamwork, etc. That actually helped me to get my job at P &G.

9:24And, but for me, I needed to get my MBA in order to switch careers from, you know, industries and completely different functions and all of that. So by the time I went to get my MBA at Indiana University, I remember there was a conference like before we even started our first year and all of these big companies were going to be there to network with. And I tried so hard to get anybody to meet with me. So I remember I took that very seriously. I'm like, this is my one shot. I am not going to mess this up. I prepared. I had this binder with research on all the top companies that I was wanting to work at.

10:02I'd done so much research. I was so prepared. People even made fun of me. But I went in really hungry, really determined, put in a lot of work and ended up getting a lot of different offers to intern at some of these top marketing companies. P &G was the top of my list because they're known for creating brand management. They literally created marketing and the company is known for developing top leaders that actually eventually lead and go become CEOs at other places. So I wanted to learn from the best. And from that conference, I had the opportunity to intern at P &G, had a great internship, and then joined full-time.

10:47And both my internship and my full-time job were on Downy, the brand of fabric softener that you mentioned. And it's funny because, like, I mean, laundry is not something I've been, like, passionate about. But I became really passionate about fabric softener and laundry detergent. And I'm eternally grateful for my time at P &G. There are two lessons for me that came out of it that really, really jump out. One is a career is not a straight line. I remember early in my career doing customer service, doing telesales, things that I didn't want to do long term, but became incredible lessons for me about how to pitch over the phone or how to listen to customers or how to how to understand how to and not to.

11:34to talk about things with customers. And the other is preparation. I know that in my career, I've had a chance to interview a lot of early career folks, as I'm sure you have. And when folks have a certain amount of hustle and preparation and go-getting from the start, it really, really stands out. And I'm sure that's one of the reasons why you got that internship. I'm curious, maybe one of the things that you learned there at Procter & Gamble, whether it was a method of working or a way that P &G approached things or just something novel about the laundry industry that you weren't aware of before.

12:21Yeah, it's, I mean, it's funny because it's hard to sort of say one thing I learned about PNG because I often joke that my time at PNG was like continued education. So I was there for six years and PNG's approach is like they hire, you know, the best is like an up or out organization. So anybody that comes in could be the CEO one day. So they like overinvest on training and development of people. And I'm eternally grateful because I basically learned everything there was to learn about marketing, brand management, leadership from the best. So it's hard to distill everything. But what I would say is one thing that ingrained inside of me was this idea of consumer is the boss.

13:05And it was really about really understanding the consumer, their needs and motivators, their barriers, and then creating product and marketing solutions that would address those things. and just overall the science and framework of brand management is all that I learned at P &G. But the other big thing that they used to say a lot and instilled that inside of me is that it was really about the people. P &G has incredible billion-dollar brands and really successful business. But they used to say, if you take away all of our brands, we'll rebuild it in a certain amount of time because we have the best people.

13:43And because of that, they invested so much in people. I was poured into from mentors and coaches so much that after a while, that's just part of who you are. So you're then mentoring and coaching other people. So this belief that people are what create the magic was really instilled in me from that experience too. So it sounds like you got the most of it. I mean, so many people are wondering, you know, should they go to a big company? Should they go to a startup and their advantages of both? But if you're at a big company, take advantage of everything that they'll invest in you. When I was at Amazon, they had incredible opportunities to learn.

14:27And also just like P &G, really, really amazing people that can mentor you and teach you about things. But you're not P &G anymore. You moved to Walt Disney in a really cool part of the company, which is the cruise and resort space. Why did you make the switch? Did you grow up a Disney fan? Was that kind of like a dream job? Were you more motivated by the career opportunity? Or tell me that story. Yeah. Well, to tell this story, I have to go back a little bit and say that, you know, While I absolutely loved my time at P &G and learned so much, it was very intense. It was very competitive, very intense.

15:15And to me at that time, work was everything. So I was transparently killing myself to sell laundry detergent. And it wasn't going in a very healthy and balanced path. And I feel like sometimes life has a way of waking us up in some subtle ways. And sometimes when we're listening, like not so subtle ways. And I got a big, really health scare when I was at P &G. They're really like, shook me to my car and made me reevaluate like everything in my life, including like, why am I killing myself to sell soap? And as I was going through this very like deep, introspective phase after I got healthy, I'm healthy now.

15:59I realized that, okay, I'm good in marketing. Obviously I've learned and I love to keep doing it, but I would love to do it in a brand and a company that I was like naturally passionate about. I would learn to be passionate about laundry, but that wasn't like instinctually there for me. And I spent a lot of time reflecting around that same time, my daughter who had just turned 12, she turned three. And for the first time we took her to Disney, I grew up going to Walt Disney World from Brazil was like a huge part of my childhood. But when I took my daughter and my family went with to Disney for the first time, and I saw Disney through her eyes, I remember I was like, in the resort, like at Magic Kingdom.

16:40And I'm like, Oh, my God, this is it like I want to work at Disney. But I didn't know anybody at Disney, like didn't like recruit in my schools I went to. So I basically went on LinkedIn and started networking and like networked, you know, my way into into the company and eventually a role opened up that was like a good fit from my experience working in marketing strategy for Disney Cruise Line. So yeah, it was like a dream that was sparked, but a personal experience that connected me to my childhood. And it felt like it was going to be a place where I could do, you know, what I loved and I had learned about marketing, but you know, with the brand and the purpose that was like more aligned with what I wanted to focus on.

17:21It's very clear as you're discussing your career projection that when you want something, you go out and you seek it and you try to get it, which is amazing. And I'm sure that a lot of people listening would like to know just a little bit more about some of your techniques for networking over LinkedIn. Someone says, I want to work here. I don't know anyone here. What should I do? Any guidance around that? Yeah, it is. Thank you for reflecting that because it is true. I, you know, have a dream. I sort of make it happen some way, manifest that, I guess, I've more and more have gotten into some inner things or like more woo things, let's say over the years and like have really embraced that what I am doing is deliberately creating the life of my dreams.

18:12It's just that throughout my life, my dreams continue to change as I change what is calling me and my dreams are changing. But to me, it starts by becoming really clear with what we want and why we want it. So there is both the clarity of the desire and the why, sort of like the fuel behind it to motivate and create the energy. And then there's some very clear staffs that I take in terms of building networks. It's all about relationships. I have learned. It's all about people and when you know you're interviewing and things like that like it's about a story it's about people connecting with you and it's it's like showing like that you know you would be like a great fit you know for for the role in a way that is true it's true to you and it comes through like in the in the conversations but yeah I have learned that over time and I've continued to refine and it is part of what I you know have been coaching people through also because I've been like learning a formula or process that has continued to work for me, even though like the dreams have changed, like how I've been approaching it is similar, but it has been like refining over time.

19:30And, you know, as part of this, you said at P &G, you were thrown a major curveball, a health scare. And, and I'm curious, how were how did you stay positive during during that? How did you have a level of positivity or maybe, or maybe was was that a challenge? And that's something that you're trying to trying to help others through with rising women? Yeah, such a great question. And, you know, and my health care was an early stage diagnosis of breast cancer. And I was really young. I was like 31, you know, and of course, those are words like you don't want to hear right from from the doctor. And, and actually, it was because of that, that my aunt actually from Brazil, shared with me a book around the power of our minds.

20:20And as I was reading that, it just became clear that this was a big opportunity for me to learn all of that and really put it all into practice. So for a moment, of course, there is that like, oh my gosh, what's happening? And there's fear, of course, and why me and all of those things. But to me, it was this big sort of initiation and lesson on the power of my mind. And that's when I started reading about it. I learned meditation, mindfulness, all of those things, because I knew that I was going to create that like experience like for myself and not only helped me go through that journey in a way that I felt uh not confident but centered grounded uh and yet positive or optimistic about it that I realized okay if I could keep bringing this thread with me like throughout my career what is possible right because up before that I would say my mind was my worst enemy without a doubt but without a doubt i had all this like melodramatic stories in my head i called them novellas because i'm brazilian right but like very dramatic novellas that were like constantly playing on repeat beating myself up driving myself crazy holding myself back right like all of those things and now like i look at this really like unfortunate diagnosis as a gift because it shook me and it woke me up and it set me like on this path that I wouldn't be today, like had that not happened.

21:59And it really, it has continued like to, to grow and go deeper. And that's sort of why rising women is even here. And like, but even my professional journey wouldn't have been possible had I not learned about the power of my mind. And, and I think that's something that people don't realize. I think it's not scientific, but I think 80 % of my success has been, it has been from my, my mindset. I mean, of course there's like really important like skills about the job and strategies and like all of that, right. Like that I have learned without a doubt. Right. But I personally believe that like 80 % has come from me really like harnessing like the power of my mind and learning to manage it and like and then create an experience like the life that I'm wanting to create an experience it's one of the cool things that I think has changed about um uh the work I guess during my career which is is combining emotional intelligence and skills together like that that seems to be a combination that really works.

23:09On the skills side, so at Walt Disney, what was your favorite part of the job there, I guess? That's number one. And then any major learnings or takeaways from a skills standpoint, maybe comparing it to your experience at P &G? Yeah, I mean, I lived the dream, you know, I was there for six years. And it was really cool because my daughter was like between four and like, I don't know, like, 10 or whatever ish, you know. And like, so she had the best childhood because we were super spoiled during a many cruises and going to the parks all the time um i mean i loved i loved being part of like a company that creates magic right uh helps dreams come true and you could feel it you could be part of it like launching a new land or a new experience a new parade i i remember all of those moments and how how incredible like it was to feel like that you were part of something that was going to create that type of experience and memory for people for like forever.

24:13Like, I don't know, this lens would be there for a long time, you know? So it was just really cool to be part of that and work with amazing people that have shared, those shared like love and passion and experience. I mean, what I learned, I also learned a lot at Disney, but I'd say the power of storytelling, right? Like just really, really important. Like people really connect to stories uh and you know even like a professional perspective when you're interviewing and things like that like how is how are you telling your story like how we tell our stories determine like where we're creating you know so like the power of stories like throughout that was really important how creating like incredible magical experiences and i feel like while at png i learned like the brain of marketing at disney i learned the heart you know because really it really was about emotion you know and creating and eliciting like emotions so people would want to come have this experience or they would remember this experience and then want to come back again in a different way uh so and also another thread is like the people were the magic makers right like it's like i i joined disney because i wanted like to be part of the magic and what i learned is like the magic were the people and like how the cast create the magic or come up with like the stories or the the rides and experiences and things like that so it the other thread was about continuing to be about people that that makes sense i like that i like the heart and the brain distinction too that's great and you went from those two iconic brands to a third iconic brand a newer brand airbnb and um and in thinking about P &G and Walt Disney, your marketing products that you experience yourself and you touch, where Airbnb, I guess, you're helping consumers choose something that you, Tatiana, aren't physically going to, even though you might have had the Airbnb experience, you obviously can't go to a million different properties.

26:11I'm curious, as first, you joined during COVID, I think, is that right, Airbnb? yeah it was towards like 2021 so yeah yeah yeah going crazy when you think about the mission of of of the marketing organization kind of comparing and contrasting to your experiences at at at Walt Disney what were your major learnings there what was it like working at Airbnb yeah it was very different you know and I wanted that like as I was wrapping my time at Disney I, you know, as we talk about like, okay, the, my process, right. To get this drink jobs. Like I first spent a lot of time clarifying what I really want.

26:51Right. So I'm never like out there, like applying to random stuff. Like I'm really like intentional. So I spent a lot of time reflecting on, okay, what would, you know, could this like next experience be? And because I had worked at very established and big and traditional companies, right. like P &G and Disney to me was like, wow, it would be really cool to work at like a high growth company, like something that's just like, like more up and coming that I could help to shape things or help to bring, you know, some of the experiences to life. I wanted a brand that, you know, I could get behind and feel like a connection to as well.

27:29And I wanted like to be myself, you know, because I have continued like my inner journey to me more and more has become important to be my truth and my authentic self, like no matter where I am, no matter where I show up. So like the culture, it was like really, really important to me. So when the Airbnb opportunity came up, it just kind of aligned, you know, with a lot of those things. But to your point, it was very different from everything. So I learned, I learned a lot of like new experiences, new ways. We were working remotely completely. So it wasn't for like a whole year that I met some of my teaming person.

28:05So it was just very like different, like way of working. And the company was starting to sort of like rebuild their marketing team. So there was a lot of growth, a lot of expansion that I was fortunate to be part of and to help build as my team and responsibilities expanded from America to include EMEA and APEC in China. So like it was a lot of growth in a very short amount of time, more than I could have even imagined or dreamed. So I learned a lot from that. But I learned about the power of building a strong brand to accelerate like growth and expansion. Because like when it was funny when I was leaving Disney, I mean, Disney is so like iconic.

28:49And it was such a part of my identity that like I had to untie and sort of like unravel as like I was, you know, getting ready to leave. But in my mind, I was like, man, I'm never going to work at another company that has a brand like Disney. I mean, I don't know what other brands could compare Disney from my own perspective. But it was really funny because like as I was leaving and sharing, even with my family in Brazil, who like I didn't even know Airbnb at the time had, you know, was such a strong presence in Brazil. I remember I was telling my friends and family in Brazil, and they're like, wow, our baby is awesome.

29:25We love it. I'm like, really?

29:29I just had no idea how strong of a brand it is for being around not as long as some of the other brands. And it does show the power of brand building and what it can do across the border, like across cultures, literally like all around the world, which was really, really cool. That is really cool. You know, I think I wanted to ask you about kind of career advice and maybe to tee it up. I'm not sure if you've seen this going around LinkedIn and other social forums, but President Obama saying, you know, the one thing that people early in their career should learn how to do is get things done. And why just figure out how to do that.