627: Jenny Wood - How To Go After What You Want and Get It (Wild Courage)

25:10This book is all about taking action when you don't yet feel like you have the right to do it because that's what the most successful people do. And I'm sure you can relate whenever you're starting something new, maybe you launch a new podcast. Maybe you write a new book. Maybe you start a new job. Maybe you're starting a new project on your team. Maybe you've moved to a new city and you're building friendships. It's that newness that gets you right back into those truths and tales, those insecurities, that imposter syndrome. And that's where I am right now. So I have no qualms about the days I get really stuck because it's just real.

25:43The hardest thing I've ever done is leaving Google and going out on my own. And in some ways I was prepared for it and knew exactly what I was getting into because of that, you know, thinking with my head and left brain tendency to get all the data and talk to all the James Clears of the world and figure out how you do it and how you build a business around it. By the way, you don't make money on a book. You make money on the consulting and the speaking that comes as a result of the book being your calling card. So I kind of understood the nuts and the bolts and the go-to-market strategy of running a business, But being in it myself, it is incredibly daunting and hard and scary and anxiety-ridden.

26:16And I just don't pretend that it's not because I guess that would be faking it, right? And so people see right through it. And people – the stuff that resonates most with audiences, frankly, is me being real, like me talking about the story where I made a massive mistake as a working mom and didn't go to my daughter when she had this terrible accident because I was in New York working. And she – the accident – let me just give context there to not scare anybody. She was baking M &M cookies with my mother-in-law in New York about two hours away from where my meetings were. And there was an accident with her hair in the mixer and it tore out some hair.

26:48And instead of going to her right away, I made this terrible mistake to prioritize my meetings and my team in the town hall I was leading that day. And like I could shy away from that and say, I'm perfect. I always make the best decisions when it comes to, you know, saying no and like saying yes to my family and no to work. But no, I totally screwed it up that day. Hmm. What made you want to leave Google? Okay. I was driving my son Ari home from choir one day and I realized we live in Boulder at the base of these, you know, at the base of the foothills and we live on kind of like windy roads. And I was on one of those roads at night driving him home.

27:26And I realized, did my eyes just flutter closed as I'm driving my son home from choir? And I think they had, but you kind of like, can't really tell if they almost did or did. And I was at that point simply doing too much. And the emotional, mental, and physical toll that all of this was taking on my body, leading my executive operations role at Google, being the founder and leader of this Own Your Career program that had taken off like wildfire with all of this external interest as well, starting to deal with writing a book and all of that comes with that. With my literary agent and publishers, being a wife and a mom, it was simply too much.

28:07I was frequently up with lowercase a anxiety from two to five o 'clock in the morning. And as a result, I was sleep deprived, deprived, I was unhealthy. I was tremendously stressed and I was clearly falling asleep or almost falling asleep at the wheel. And I just said, something's got to give. You can do everything, but not at the same time. And I had to think about what I needed to give up in that moment, even though it was the absolute hardest decision I have ever made because I just thought I'd be at Google another 15 years and retire there. Never in my plan to leave Google ever. And it's still shocking to me that I did.

28:40Do you still work with them? Like now are they one of your clients? Yes. Number one client. I figured. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. But I was so scared. What if they never have me back? What if I can never get a job again if the book fails? And again, truths and tales. Why would I think that they wouldn't bring me in as a keynote speaker. I'm their keynote for International Women's Day this year. So it's all very exciting. Okay. In Wild Courage, your book, you write about the fact that there are these nine traits and you want to transform these nine labels. You've already hinted at a few of them.

29:11Labels into powerful traits. I'm going to read them and then we're going to drill down and do a few of them. Is that cool? Awesome. I can't wait to hear what you pick. Okay. Weird, selfish, shameless, obsessed, nosy, manipulative, brutal, reckless, bossy. Okay. We're going to start with weird, the number one, one. And I want to actually, we're going to, we're going to hit a couple of them because I want to talk about one of the favorite people that you've interviewed that you eventually hired. I enjoyed reading this story. Is it Carly Kosiak? Oh yeah. Carly Kosiak. Is that how you say it? Okay.

29:43You said this is one of our best hires at Google. Yeah. Everybody in the world applies to work at Google. So you're getting the best of the best of the best, amazing resumes, probably even better when they interview. It's got to be tough to choose because you've got so many good options. It's a great problem to have. But why did Carly stand out? What made her one of the best hires at Google? Well, she was weird on her resume. And weird doesn't mean pink hair. Weird means saying something like Carly did that isn't strictly necessary, but stands out because weird is the courage to stand out and to be authentic because within your so-called weirdness lie your greatest strength.

30:22So hone every ounce of weird you've got. And that could be as simple as saying something like what Carly said on her resume, which was at the very bottom, in constant pursuit of the perfect oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. Now, Carly could have played it safe and done what everybody else does, which is written foodie or enjoys baking. But Carly, in just one sentence showed that she was weird, like I just described, right? Like had the sentence that she was obsessed in constant pursuit, right? Obsessed is about push, perform, persist. It's the courage to set your own standard. It showed that she was nosy, right?

31:00That she was, had the courage to dig deeper and get insatiably curious. And she wasn't just going to stop at one recipe. She's going to keep looking till she found it. And so all of that in one single sentence is what I call brutal, the power of concise communication and being clear and prioritizing concision. So that is why it certainly stood out to me as a weird thing to say on a resume. And then of course, when she did interview, the colorful personality matched what was written on the resume and she had the chops and the business experience and all the important stuff to go with it. And that's why she got the job.

31:32And she just kept being authentic and seeking growth opportunities within Google and just kept moving up. One of the words that has come up recently, Jenny, in my conversations on this podcast that I think Carly also embodies is specificity, being specific. I think this is a core trait of people who sustain excellence. It sounds weird, but for example, you write a cold email and instead of saying, Hey, Jenny, you're so impressive. Can I pick your brain? You get specific in your praise and specific in your ask. And there's much higher likelihood of you wanting to respond if the person writing you is specific as opposed to being very vague or broad or general.

32:21That's what Carly did on her resume, right? She was specific, whereas everyone else says, I love to bake. I'm a foodie, right? She talked about oatmeal raisin cookies. And I think even though I don't like those types of cookies, I like that she's specific in her description of herself and her pursuit. That says so much about a person. I am all, my husband was interviewing for roles a bit back and I was like, John, the best phrase you can use in an interview is for example. Because when you say, for example, it forces the specificity. Or again, let's talk about those accomplishment bullets or the Monday manifesto.

32:58So here's what vague sounds like. Helped grow revenue a million dollars. Okay, not everyone's going to have that kind of a huge accomplishment. But let's just say for easy example, helped grow revenue a million dollars. That I would give like a red stoplight on my report card here. Or like a red rating. Let's go to a yellow rating. helped drive, you know, drove a million dollars in revenue, which was 12 % year over year growth. Now we've got context, right? Okay. But now what we're going to get to is this, what we're doing, by the way, is doubling our numbers, right? We're doubling our numbers by saying 12 % year over year growth.

33:33That tells us, was it a million on a hundred million or was it a million on 500 ,000? Big difference, right? So 12 % year over year growth by, and here's where we really get specific by creating office hours that clients could come to every Tuesday afternoon for two hours, which had never been done. So now we're both doubling the numbers, which I always say, double your numbers, double your numbers, double your numbers. And we're also adding context around like what it was that you did, what specifically happened. So someone can visualize the creativity of you thinking of this office hours idea, or by let's say by bundling products that had never been bundled before, right?

34:08There are so many different things you can say, But think about, we think of classic ROI, return on investment. What's your ROI for a bullet like this in your career? It's your role, your objective, and your impact. What was your role? You wanted to, your role was like the sales leader or whatever it is, right? You were the person who created the office hours. What was the objective to upsell these clients? And what was the impact? It was the 12 % year-over-year growth in a million bucks. So double your numbers and think ROI, role, objective, impact on any resume bullet, any accomplishment bullet or any bullet in your Monday manifesto.

34:42You write about goal setting. And this is something that I personally struggle with. I have moments where I set these giant public goals for all to see and judge me on and hold me accountable to. And then I have other times where I'm like, I don't really want to set goals. I just want to stick to the process. I want to marry the process and divorce the results and what will be will be. And so I go back and forth. I've had certain years where I do it. you have this formula that you call rock chalk talk and walk what does that mean when it comes to goal setting yeah so the rock is the big rock the big goal you want to you want to set and ryan i'm going to touch into a little bit about the process too even though this first explanation of rock chalk talk walk is really about the goal setting process but i think what you're hitting on is really meaningful as well so let me come back to that but rock is what's the big goal you want you want to set.

35:34So I'm literally taking this sticky note off of my monitor right now. And all of you listening, I'm holding up to Ryan a piece of paper with tape on top because I just took it off. And it says rock colon. So 15 ,000 US hardcover copies, wild courage by March 25th, 2020. Nice. Okay. So that is a very, very clear goal. It's not make this book successful. It is sell 15 ,000 US hardcover copies, hardcover because that's what counts for the New York Times bestseller list. And people don't realize that, but that's how the lists work. It's got a clear deadline, March 25th, or let's call it end of March because that's the pub date.

36:16That's why I put that. But that is the rock. I did not say, make the book successful. How do you measure that? It goes back to doubling your numbers. How do you know if you succeeded or failed on that goal? So that's the rock. Chalk is you write it down, right? So first I had to think, what is the goal? I wrote it down. I put it on my monitor for me to see it every day. Talk is I say it out loud. Well, I just practiced the talk right now. I said it to you and all of you right here listening. I say it to my husband. I say it to my friends. And I don't shy away from having this big, hairy, audacious goal.

36:47Not I want to be a musician, but a Grammy award-winning musician that's touring internationally by 2027, right? And you say it out loud so that people can give you ideas, they can introduce you to other people, and that you're not just living in your head with it. And finally, walk the walk. What is the one small thing I can do right now that will help me move toward that goal? It's sending out those last hundred emails that are plaguing me to get people to bring me in for keynotes because bulk sales is a huge help to achieve these goals. So that's rock, chalk, talk, and walk. However, you mentioned sometimes you're like, I just want to live the process.

37:21Ryan, I think we can get stuck in the goals and I think we can overwhelm ourselves. And I think that sometimes it can take the joy. And yesterday I was writing a bunch of thank you notes, right? To people who've helped me on this book. And my goodness, that doesn't move me any closer to this 15 ,000 goal, but man, did it bring me joy and man, did it make this process fun. And And I oftentimes have gone down a rabbit hole on the wrong thing or gotten too focused on the North Star of making the book as successful as possible week one, right? And I've oftentimes lost sight in the privilege of writing a book.

37:59The fact that as another big time author said to me, Jenny, you're already winning. I'll just say who it is because it's such a great quote. Seth Godin was like, Jenny, you're already winning. You are already winning. You have a big book deal. You've got this incredible gift you can give to people. You're already winning and keeping that in mind and just leading with gratitude and enjoying the process, which is really difficult for me because I can be my own worst enemy on goal achievement and having too much ambition or obsession or recklessness or desire to achieve my goal. So it's tough and I have to remember to enjoy the process.

38:33If you sell 12 ,000 copies that first week, how will you feel? You're asking such good questions. I'm going to feel great. I'm going to be momentarily bummed, but this is something called impact bias. It's a classic cognitive bias. It's a social psychological principle that states that when we anticipate a negative event, getting laid off, or not getting the raise we want, or not getting the project, or getting harsh feedback from our boss, or a breakup, a relationship, we think that negative feeling is going to feel worse and last longer than it ends up feeling. And there's a ton of science around this.

39:09It's called impact bias again. And so I've already visualized that moment of getting the call from my agent that I did not hit the New York Times or only sold X number of copies. And what will still be true is that there will still be 12 ,000, not 15 ,000 people in the world who have my book in their hand and who are going to be better because of it, who are going to be more confident, more able to ask for what they want. They'll be better able to kick their imposter syndrome to the curb. I will have shared my stories about both my maternal grandmother and my paternal grandmother in the shameless chapter for my grandma and the nosy chapter for my bubby.

39:47And I will have shared those stories with the world. And this is the whole point of writing a book and putting the work out there is to help people. So what if I help 12 ,000 and not 15 ,000? The book, if it's good, will get recommended by other people. And eventually the book will find itself into the right hands. And I will feel thrilled about the individuals that I impacted and those notes I get back from people because I'm already getting them about how this work is impacting their life and helping them get promoted and helping them get the raise and helping them be happier in their relationships because they're standing up for what they want confidently now.

40:19One of the things people say is, you got to play it cool. You know, play it cool. Let them come to you. I'm thinking of Dumb and Dumber. I'll be over by the bar putting out the vibe. Sorry. That's just for me. But play it cool. Play it cool. Right? And you're like, no, we're going to play it hot. What does it mean to play it hot? Yeah. So play it hot is a strategic decision to not fit in. We're going opposite of middle school, right? Where everyone's going to wear the same jeans and the same crop top. Oh my gosh. Side note. I see what these girls wear in middle school and I'm horrified, but that's a conversation for another time.

40:54But whatever it is, they all are shopping at the exact same place, getting the same style that you don't want to stand out in middle school because that's like social suicide. But at work, you want to stand out. It's the only way that you will get the cool projects. Leaders keep lists. They have a bench of who's going to do the maternity and the paternity backfills. By the time the job rec for an official job is posted, sometimes it's too late by then. You need to be building those relationships. We talked about this at the top of the call, but it's building those relationships. It's writing down your dynamic dozen, the 12 people you want to meet in the next 12 weeks.

41:30It's saying something in a meeting that might get your wrist slapped and get you a compliment in the same afternoon. If you're the intern, sure. Wear the expected, like here's playing it cool as an intern. Wear the expected business casual attire. Nod in every meeting. Keep your video off because you don't want to stand out. You want to play it cool. That is a perfect strategy if all you need is that fancy company's name on your resume for the three-month stint. But if you want to be competing and getting the job against the 20 other interns there, you best be playing it hot. Ask to be put on a project, even if it's not what interns typically do.

42:07Ask to present the work, even if it's five full-time employees who also were part of the project. Be the one who sends the comms every week because the person who sends the comms oftentimes gets the lion's share of the credit. Be the person who diplomatically disagrees live in a meeting and get that wrist slap and that compliment, but at least you're standing out and people know who you are. What does it mean to watermark your work? Watermarking your work. I almost pulled this from the book and I'm so glad I didn't. Watermarking your work is putting your name, your title, and sometimes even your picture on any work document.

42:41And I almost pulled it from the book because it felt so obvious. But let's say you're giving a presentation to an internal team of 50 people and your slide one says, Q1 business review, no names, no contributors, no picture, no way to get in touch with you. But sometimes that Q1 business review makes it way to 300 other people at the company. Let people know that you made this deck. And my editor at Penguin Random House, Lydia, is such a, she's just totally delightful. And she's like, I watermarked this presentation I did. And it went up to the top of Penguin Random housed. And I'm so glad it had my name and my email address on that first slide because they knew how to find me and they knew what else I could do.

43:23Think about a remodel in your neighborhood. If someone puts a sign on the front, oftentimes they'll put a sign on the front lawn saying what the name of the architect or the remodel company, the contractor is. So call that shameless, but shameless is about letting people know who you are and what you can do and what you stand for. And maybe somebody else in the neighborhood wants to remodel and you're actually helping them by making it clear what you offer and the great work that you do. Is this true that there was an NYU Facebook group called, I'm going to butcher this name, Stephanie Germanada, you will never be famous.

43:58Is that true? That is true. Yeah. So Stephanie Germanada is not famous, but Lady Gaga, her alter ego sure is. And so what did Stephanie do in college, right? She was shameless. She didn't set her bar against to everybody else's. She's like, these people are not relevant to me. My goal is not to please these peers at NYU. My goal is to be a massive pop star. So she just tuned out the noise of the naysayers and the people who weren't relevant for her success. And that is part of what being shameless is. Huh? That was gotta be tough. How do you help somebody? Like I personally, I think struggle with this.

44:38I remember talking to Adam Grant on this, which I know you guys are colleagues as well. And I said, dude, this whole like self-promotion thing is really hard. I want to sell books too. I want to promote the podcast. Promoting myself gives me the ick about myself. He goes, you're not promoting yourself. You're promoting the work and your work changes people's lives for the better. Keep doing it. And it really helped, but I still have those days. I still have those days. What do you think about that? Yeah. So, you know, again, we're talking about the shameless chapter here. This is the courage to stand behind your efforts and your abilities.

45:09And because, and maybe I already said this, but it's worth repeating that audacity, shamelessness is a survival skill because you are there to create value in the world for other people. And the thing that made me want to call this trait shameless is because I was in a meeting and someone came off of mute and she said, I have a shameless plug, but I created this document and like a spreadsheet rather. And I really think it's going to save everybody at least 30 minutes on this call. And I cringed. I always wince when someone says, this is a shameless plug. Plug away. What is the shame, right? We get these things instilled in us as kids.

45:45Don't rock the boat. Listen more than you talk. Wait your turn. Stand in line. But we are then doing a disservice to everybody else in that room or who might be interested in your work by not making it available to them. So as soon as she said that everybody had all these emojis flying on the call of, oh my gosh, this is so helpful. The chat was exploding. I can't believe I've been wasting so much time doing this process. And now I have this spreadsheet from you that saves me time. If we can even just start small, right? Like again, you might not be a subway chaser. That is A, okay. How do you start small?

46:21Maybe replace, this is a shameless plug too. I have something that I'm proud of that you might find valuable. Like we're not selling, we're helping people. Well, the problem with this is everybody knows that person in the meetings that speaks up too much and doesn't add value that actually makes the meeting worse. And some of us have the fear of like, God, I never want to be that guy. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that guy. And I'm picturing some of those guys right now. And so I'm like, I would rather wait, or maybe I'm going to, you know what I mean? So how do you manage this balance?

46:59Because I want the things I say to be useful, to be valuable, to be helpful. I don't want to make this meeting worse. I don't want to make it longer than it needs to be. How do you manage that balance? Okay. So there's a concept I call trait traps, which is when you take these traits too far. Obsessed is about how you should push, perform, and persist. It's not about grinding yourself into a workaholic and grinding yourself into a pulp. But I would argue that I think the pushback, and I expect plenty of pushback on this book. It's terrifying to think about what the pushback might be. I already know of companies who say, ooh, this doesn't align with our values.

47:35We can't bring you in. But what I offer is that, first of all, it's all obviously tongue in cheek, right? This is all using these traits in a savvy, insane way for good and expansion of the pie for everybody, not redividing the pie. But if you are somebody who thinks, no, Jenny, selfishness is the big problem in the world. Being manipulative is where we're all getting it wrong. Being shameless and everybody just coming off of mute and saying too much is the problem. I would say that think about 20 people in a meeting, Ryan. Okay, I guess that's a big meeting. There's going to be the one guy or girl who says too much and who's kind of annoying and who doesn't know when to shut up.

48:14But think about the 19 other people in that meeting who I'm guessing you would feel struggle with too much imposter syndrome or don't get out of their own way or live in too much fear or have great, brilliant ideas and they're too scared to say them or too nervous or think, oh, what if it was already said before? What if anybody disagrees? That's who I've written this book for. If you've ever had a moment where you wanted to say something and you were too intimidated to say it, or you had a good idea and you held back, or you wanted to take action but you thought, I'm not ready yet, or my website's not perfect yet, or I don't have the right label or position at this company to have this opinion, that's who this book is for.

48:52And I would argue there are far, far more of those people in the world than there are of the people who say too much in a meeting. Yeah, I think it's just like the profession of selling. That was my background for 12 years before doing this full time. And you talk to a non-sales professional, someone who hasn't worked in the industry, and they'll say, oh my God, I hate that so much. I hate salespeople because they had a bad experience with a bad buying a car or something. And so they just think they hate the entire profession because of that one or two or three bad experiences where if you actually interact with an awesome sales professional, you usually build a genuine relationship and that person only sells you something if they can genuinely help you like their solution solves a problem it's the same way like we're talking about like you get the one person sometimes ruins it for all of the rest and i think that's what we're talking about here that one person in the meeting can ruin it and makes you everyone else say oh let me just chill because we already had one loud mouth in here i don't want to risk being the second you know yeah and you don't have to be a loud mouth it could simply be speaking your mind sharing your good ideas, giving three options and sharing your opinion, right?

50:01Like even that's a very simple tactic of how you can show yourself as a leader. But if you, this is, this is a lot of leaders listening right now. And as a leader, your goal should be to coach and support people to be better than they think they can be. And as a leader, your job, like if your title is director, direct, right? Don't shy away. Don't him and ha around decisions. Like I did earlier in my director career, have the confidence and have the shamelessness to make decisions, to be a little bossy. And I think it can be a beautiful thing to steer others to success. I love it. Jenny, if let's say you're meeting with somebody who's earlier in their career and they aren't a hundred percent sure what they want to do, but they do want to leave a positive dent in the world.

50:39What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to that person? Yeah. So everyone's going to have a performance review and everyone is going to, because we have this negativity bias, right? Which is another classic cognitive bias to focus on your strengths and your opportunity, sorry, focus on your opportunities, not your strengths. So when you walk out of your performance review with your boss and they say you were good at apples, bananas, and pears, and I want you to work a little bit more on strawberries. What do you do? You go home and you say to your partner or your friend or your parents, I'm no good at strawberries.

51:11When you are early in your career, I want you to focus on your strengths. I want you to put 75 % of your effort into your strengths. Focus on your apples, bananas, and your pears, if those were the three fruits that I said. Go to your boss and ask for more projects that align with apples, bananas, and pears. And then also using that same 75 % rule, this is tip number two of three I will share here for early career professionals. But number two is say yes to 75 % of things that come your way and say no to 25%. You never know where you might strike gold or find an incredible opportunity if you're protecting your time too much.

51:48Then when you're in your 40s, let's say flip that ratio and say no to 75 % of things and yes to 25 % of things because you have a better sense of what you actually want to be focusing on. And the final thing I will say for people who are early in their career is, and this is a totally different type of tool, but this is all about your written communication. And this is called woo with you. Woo with you is starting as many of your sentences in your emails with the word you, as opposed to the word I. I wrote an email a thank you note to someone who had me in for a keynote recently. And every sentence started with I, I loved doing this keynote.

52:24I had so much fun partnering with your team. I love the gift basket that you sent me. I dove right in. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this is so focused on me. Focus on your audience. That is a great tactic. Call it manipulative, but in the healthiest way to build influence through empathy. So I rewrote the whole thing. You were incredible to partner with because of your speed, your creativity, and your energy. Your team was top notch and I loved their interactivity during the session. You might benefit from this new leadership training I'm workshopping if I could add value to your team. You sent the most delicious gift box, right?

52:55The first version, all with I, the second version, all with you. That's really good. Really tactical. And side note, if cauliflower could be pizza, you could be anything, right? It's sitting over your right shoulder. Brilliant. What does that mean to you? It means that all the stuff can be learned, Ryan. Every single thing with these tiny little tools and tactics and tips and tricks. Oh, we didn't get to tame the octopus. I love the communication tool called tame the octopus. That is something you can learn to be a more succinct speaker in an interview, in a one-on-one with your boss, in a meeting, and all this stuff can be learned.

53:32So to me, if cauliflower can be pizza, you can be anything. It means that if you have a growth mindset, if you think of maybe you're not XYZ, but it just means you're not XYZ yet, that you really can be anything. And who wants cauliflower pizza anyway? Not me. The book's called Wild Courage. Go after what you want and get it. It is really good. A combination of story science, practical application, which is my favorite type of framework that the best of the best seemed like everyone tries it, but not everybody gets it right. And I feel like, Jenny, you really have here. And I really enjoyed preparing and enjoyed our conversation even more.

54:07So thank you so much for doing this. I highly encourage people to get Wild Courage. I like it really rooting for you to crush this 15 ,000 number. I give you credit for sharing that. I have never done that. And I don't think I have the courage to put a number on it. Yeah. Then you could fail. Then you could fail publicly. And I give you huge credit for doing stuff that most people are not willing to do. And I think that's really cool. I think it's also inspiring like to me and to others to be willing to put that out there, even though there's a there's a good chance you could fail because that's a lot of books.

54:39That's a ton of books to sell, especially in the first week. That is almost nobody does it. So I think it's awesome. I think it's really cool that you've put that out there. Thank you. And if I don't achieve it, you know what people will think of me? That I am a human who went for something and it didn't happen. And it's just part of life. No matter whether you win or fail in any one given thing, you will never feel as powerful, purposeful and alive as when you're pushing past that fear to the joy and success on the other side. So put the number out there, make it big and, and push past the fear because it's not the single thing that matters.

55:17It's the habit of wild courage. Yes. And by the way, people want to follow people want to get behind a leader who is striving for something big, not a leader who's striving for something like, ah, let me hedge a little. No, we want to get behind people that are going for it, Like going for something big. That's what we want to get behind. And I think you're a great example of that. So Jenny, thank you so much for being here. I would love to continue our dialogue as we both rest. This has been so much fun. Likewise. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you to everybody listening.

55:54It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Jenny Wood. A few takeaways from my notes. Serendipity isn't found. It's made. Make your own luck. The best leaders create serendipity for their teams. A success mindset precedes success. You have to believe it and then go do it. At work, say no to the small. Do not be the seventh person to reply all to the happy birthday email. In fact, you should almost never reply all. Don't do the NAP work.

56:40NAP stands for not actually promotable work. Sign up for the projects that help make your company better. And then Carly Koziak, one of the best hires she ever made at Google. Carly had the courage to stand out. She was specific. Her resume indicated interest in learning and being in pursuit of finding the perfect oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. It was specific, actionable. It showed that she had a dynamic personality and that she wasn't afraid. Her personality popped off the page. She was weird, reckless, nosy, obsessed, and brutal, as Jenny would say. You got to be yourself, but don't just be weird to play a role.

57:27Be authentically you and then be fearless in your pursuit of it and showing others. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Jenny Wood. I think she'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. and you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you click that subscribe button. You're right, a thoughtful review and you rate the show hopefully five stars. By doing all of that, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis and for that, I will forever be grateful.

58:07Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.