Halle Tecco Wisdom: Choosing a Life Partner & Prioritising Adventure

0:01Welcome back to Giant Ideas. Last week we spoke to Halle Tecco, the leading US healthcare entrepreneur, investor and author about massively improving healthcare. Today we're going to talk to her about the wisdom she's accumulated in life and about the person behind the giant idea. Halle, if you could choose three photographs that defined your life and were moments that you really gained wisdom of what life is all about what would those three photographs be so well thank you for

0:31Halle Tecco:telling me this question in advance because i don't know if i could have picked three on the spot but last night i was kind of going through like my my personal life's photo album which was a really fun exercise and i think i think i did figure out the three okay um so the first is coming going to san francisco when i moved to san francisco in 2006 right out of college and I can like see the city out my window. I'm a window seat gal for life and just kind of seeing the city and that feeling I had of like a new beginning for myself. I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and I went to school there as well.

1:07Halle Tecco:I was a first gen college student. And for me, like I literally took the job I got that was farthest away from Ohio. I just really was at that point in my life so eager to have a new adventure. And so that was a huge, huge moment in my life. And then obviously going to San Francisco for lived there for nine years to find everything I have done professionally. And it's also where I met my husband, who I then married in 2012, which is my second picture. and my husband I married in 2012 and I would say I was told in business school that one of the most important decisions you would make is who you marry and I could not be more true having a partner and a spouse who supports your work and enables you to achieve everything that you want to achieve is just so special and I've now seen unfortunately friends who marry people who haven't been the most supportive and have kind of different visions for their life together.

2:05Halle Tecco:That is really misaligned. That makes me, as I've now been married for 15 years, um, no, not 15 years, 13 years, um, uh, you know, kind of see, see, and really appreciate how your personal life is one thing and optimizing for having, you know, a strong relationship and friends and family around is important, but actually for your career, like having a spouse that really supports you in your career can like make or break that. Do you think who you marry is the single most important decision you make in your life? Oh my gosh. It's one of them. Yes. Yes. It's one of them. What would the other ones be?

2:44Um, to have kids or not. Okay.

2:46Halle Tecco:I think that's really important. Making that a conscious choice. I think it's an underrated one. Yeah. My cousin gave me great advice before I had kids. It was like, at the very least, at least make it a hyper-conscious decision where most people just do it because that's what everyone else does, which I don't think is a good idea. Yes. I agree with that. This cousin's very consistent. He also tried very hard to convince me not to have any more children at dinner. Does this person have, does your cousin have kids? He does. He has kids. He has kids. Oh, the irony of that. But yeah, I agree. I think in, in society, there are certain expectations of what you do.

3:17Halle Tecco:Um, and you get married and you have kids and sometimes people go through the motions without really thinking of it um and i mean maybe that's changing now because there's the rise of the dink you know the dink that's all income no kids lifestyle okay the dink lifestyle i think is uh becoming more known and so people can see that there's another path yeah but i have friends that never had kids and are perfectly happy and fulfilled and they get to be aunts and um i think that's okay yeah did you know your husband was definitely the right choice. When I was dating him, no. I mean, we were so young and we were partying a lot in San Francisco and having a good time.

3:53Halle Tecco:And it wasn't necessarily on our minds at the time. He was a little wild. It was the early days of Facebook, right? It was early days of Facebook and it was, you know, San Francisco. It was just a different lifestyle than what I was wanting. And then I went to business school. So we were apart for two years and, you know, that was hard, but we made it work. And by the end of that, it was, But by the end of my first year, kind of like knew like, OK, this is this is going to work. So what's the third? Oh, and the third, I would say, is the picture over my window seat on the plane moving to London.

4:28Halle Tecco:And I got so lucky because the path wasn't supposed to go over London, but we had to wait like half an hour. And so the pilot took us over London and got to see the river and the bridge. And it was just such a stunning view. It was a beautiful, clear day in April. And I was almost in tears because like both excited for a new adventure. But like what a remarkable city this is. Like such a privilege to be able to move here and get my visa and be able to just get up and move like that. People don't really do that in their 30s and 40s. I think people kind of get settled somewhere. They have kids. And then that's like their place.

5:06Halle Tecco:and for us to, we've moved so much and we're like such adventurers that that was, it was a big deal, but it was also something we did with a lot of conviction. What would be your advice to, I guess the 22 year old Hallie flying into San Francisco, looking out the window? Yeah. You know, when you're in San Francisco, just having fun and being young, you meet a lot of people who are working on really interesting things and 99 out of a hundred times, it's not going to end up being anything significant, but some people are going to end up building these like game changing platforms. And so, you know, a lot of folks that I was able to like just have beers with and get to know as humans ended up doing really cool things.

5:45Halle Tecco:So that was, you know, I don't know if I would have any different advice for that, but that was something I don't think I expected. I was just trying to make friends and have fun. And that's like a really special thing about San Francisco is that it's not it wasn't networking. It was just like hanging out with cool, like minded folks who had moved to San Francisco and wanted, you know, to talk about what's going on in the world. Ali this is a big one to ask any person but if you had to step back what would be the wisdom that you feel you've accumulated in life that you would like to share with people what's life all about for you oh my gosh um no pressure so when I uh when I was living in San Francisco in about 2011 or 2012 uh I got a call one day from my sister that my dad was in the hospital and he had a heart attack and, um, she would keep me posted.

6:36Halle Tecco:And so I kind of just, I was like, okay, keep me posted. And, you know, talk to them every few hours to hear what was going on. Uh, and I, I didn't do anything. I went on with my day. I went on with my week. I had a bunch of meetings that I just didn't think to move and go home and, you know, change everything up. And, um, I look back now, I'm like, I have no idea what those meetings were, like what I was doing that was more important than going home. Fortunately, my dad recovered. He went to cardiac rehab and he's 80 years old today, which is great. But that was a huge inflection point in my career because I a few months later looked back and was so ashamed of myself for putting random work meetings with people that would have absolutely understood, hey, my dad had a heart attack.

7:22Halle Tecco:I need to go home and be with him. And I really regretted making that choice. And that was when my husband and I decided to leave San Francisco. And we realized that while it is such a magical place, and I'm so glad I was there, not just because it was where I launched my career and met my husband and made so many great friends. uh but it is uh it is it was then and it is returning to be now a hustle culture that is not compatible with living a life revolving around your family where your family matters to you yeah that story about your dad resonates massively with me when i when i lost my dad a couple of years ago i basically went back to work almost within three days or something and lovely guy called zach who's an investor here in london at mng gave me some great advice which was to let the grief in because otherwise if it sets it will turn to concrete and it was one of the best pieces of advice i've ever got yeah so did you then take time off and i just i basically let the grief in whenever it came and it comes in cycles in random moments but the kind of the main advice was when it comes allow it to wash over you and fully embrace it yeah rather than blocking it out yeah yeah i think um you know our time with our our parents our time with our children our time with partners are limited and so important.

8:33Halle Tecco:And it's, it's hard to make it a priority when you love what you're doing. And it's professionally because I love working. Like I could work 80 hours if I didn't have anyone in my life that I cared about spending time with. And I was, I also, I wasn't working out. I never went to the gym. I just wasn't really taking care of myself. We were out partying all night and then working all day. And it was, it was not healthy. And so leaving San Francisco at that time was, was, was important. Uh, I think for us, and we were able to kind of like regroup our life and decide what we wanted to do, which is when we were also like, okay, let's start a family.

9:08Halle Tecco:Like let's, let's put family first. Our parents are getting older. Um, we were kind of ready for that. We always joke, we were ready to bring someone else into the relationship. Uh, so, uh, so that was kind of when we started our, our journey to becoming parents. Last one. We ask every guest who comes with John ideas, this, what is it about you that has made you so successful? Oh, gosh, that's a hard one. No modesty allowed. I work really hard. I've always had to kind of earn everything. You know, I was a work-study student. I don't know if that is something you guys know, but I was on a work-study program, meaning I had to work through college, and the government supported my college degree.

9:49Halle Tecco:So I'm just used to working a lot. I also, in addition to doing work-study, I worked at the mall at Nordstrom throughout college. Um, so I'm used to just juggling a lot of things and working really hard. And, um, and I think that's, that's paid off. Amazing. The greatest football manager in English history called Alex Ferguson, who managed Manchester United. His, his big thing was that hard work is a great talent. It is. And I do, you know, it's something I think about a lot for my, my son, because he's, has a very different upbringing than, than I had. Um, so how can I help distill that hard work?

10:24Halle Tecco:And so one of the things I've been doing lately is, um, and I read this in a book, and maybe you guys can use this with your children is really praising effort over outcome. And like, I'm so proud of you. You worked so hard on that. Yeah. What was it? Raising adults. Is it a story you wish your parents had read or something like that? I think it might be in multiple books. But yeah. So I'm like, you worked so hard preparing for that test. You tried really hard and I'm really proud of you. You took it seriously and really focusing on kind of the effort. Because once we get to a point of just focusing on outcomes, then they're not thinking about the joy and just learning.

10:59Halle Tecco:And so when things get hard, they, you know, children can become persistent and not or not not be persistent and kind of shy away from a good challenge. Or they embed their sense of identity in the results rather than effort, which is also can have negative effects. Yeah. And my parents just didn't really care. like they were they were like they weren't really impressed by by much they kind of just wanted me to be happy and healthy and they were always so supportive and loving but like now that my parents went to college they didn't really have uh you know they they they wanted me to go to college but beyond that they just wanted me to be happy and have a 401k and stability so yeah well thank you so much for sharing hallie thanks thanks hallie really appreciate it

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