January 22, 2022 • 46 mins
John Hope Bryan chats with Sarah Friar. It takes the same effort to win small than to win big, so always shoot big.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Building the Good Life with John Hope Bryant is brought
to you by Potential Financial Since I joined next Door,
we did research that shows that, um, if you're feeling
socially isolated, if you're feeling those feelings of loneliness, one
of the best things you can do is just to
get off your sofa and go outside and do a
random act of kindness. You might think it's helping the
(00:20):
other person, but here's like the little selfish gene moment.
It's helping you. That's right, helping you the psychologically. That
psychological effect has a deep physiological effect, and so people
worry all the time about running or eating well or
you know, having a dry January, when really, maybe if
(00:41):
we all just did a random act of kindness a
couple of times a week, we'd all be much healthier. Hi,
this is John Hope Bryant, and this is Building the
Good Life, and I'm with my dear friend Sarah Bryan,
who you know as chief executive officer of the publicly
traded company next Door, symbol kind cool. A little bit
(01:01):
about Sarah before we get into this. She grew up
in Northern Ireland. She graduated from the University of Oxford
and Stanford University. She was an analyst for Mackenzie. She
was an analyst at Goman Sacks. None of this so far,
it's extraordinary, But here's where it starts to get interested.
She then became chief financial officer at Square, working with
(01:24):
a brilliant guy named Jack Dorsey, who I know because
of her, and she is serves on the board of
both Slack and Walmart. Now, this has to be the smallest, simplest,
most understated, underrated bio I've ever read. That's I mean,
that's literally her whole bio on wikipe. But that doesn't
that doesn't give you a thimble of who this person is.
(01:48):
And if you ever noticed, she's a woman. And how
do you go from being a U an analyst at
Mackenzie and Goldman Sacks and being a CFO chief financial officer.
That's serious. You're watching the money, the moulah, the Dallas,
the cash, the bills, the wealth um at the Square,
one of the biggest companies now in the world. UM
(02:11):
working for investors who don't uh sleep and have no
patience for no pun intended to Slack. She's also on
the board of Slack of Walmart. So we're gonna get
into this. Welcome my friend Sarah Fry. Thank you, John
Way too kind. I hate biles, which is why my
bio is not something you've spent a lot of time on.
I always think it sounds like your eulogy, like maybe
(02:34):
you've died. Um, so you're right, much more interesting to
get to know the person and the human and so
let's do that. So uh on that note, And I
knew that, like most things in your life, I knew
that you had some hand in in curating how short
that bio was because you, like me, you're control free.
(02:54):
And I mean that in the most positive way. You
know that we control our environment. We don't let somebody
else control it to that we can. Uh. The reality
is a lot of our environment is out of our control.
Uh So in some ways we're sort of grasping in
the distance with dark shades on at night. But that
doesn't mean you can't lead without fright, and you lead
(03:17):
without fright. I'm gonna give an example for the audience,
So full disclosure by every what everybody I'm on the
board of next Door, which we'll get to in a moment.
Just disclosure for everybody that I have a business relationship
also it Sarah, Um, but we're we're we're kind of
the same cloth for sure. But I didn't know that literally,
she didn't know that literally intuitively knew it. There's three
(03:40):
women that I can think of who've given me something.
I'm sure there are others. So if you're watching this
and listening this and it supplies that, you don't be offended. Uh.
Susan Actually Susan Johnson, chief marketing officer at Prudential, sponsors
this podcast series as an example. She's not a gift
giving but she didn't believe what we're doing. But Sarah
(04:01):
Friar is under is a path to hunt of of
women who, for no good business reason, did something nice
for me, something kind. Um, my mother, she birthing me
was her was her responsibility raising me? What sort of
her she she's showing, I had to do it, by
the way, well as exactly no good desho go and
(04:26):
punishes as a parent, as a domestic engineer, Sarah, but
my mother invested in my first business, which you know,
I don't think she wanted to do. But you know,
she's like, yeah, but I believe in you. I'm sorry
she but she invested in the first business. She didn't
want to do that. She didn't want to invest in
my my business later on, which she was gonna be
a bust. She was right, Okay, So my mother invested
my business, Shaitra, my wife invested in another business I
(04:48):
had for African art art. When I didn't have the
money to take the inventory across the country. She just
gave me her credit card when I sold it. After
what was her cut? She said, what do you mean?
What cut? We're friends, That's why I trust her so much. Right,
she has no agenda. And the third person that comes
to mind is you. Isn't that weird? I mean, it's
(05:09):
weird beautiful? Do you know this? Do you know? Do
you know what I'm referring to? I'm wondering where you're
going with us because I feel like you're I mean,
too much credit. So what's the moment? Because I feel
a very strong connection. So you and I met in
the place that we can't talk about, an undisclosed location
public by the way, we just can't talk about it.
And we didn't know each other all that way, although
(05:31):
we had sort of bonded fibe wise and energy wise
and uh, one day either I called you or you
called me, And I think you called me and said,
do you know Jack Dorsey and you too would be
great together? And I'm like, well, no, I don't know,
but who doesn't know Jack Dorsey founders, Twitter Square, billionaires.
You know, Brady got cool walks to work with sandals
(05:52):
on for for an hour, you know, a day Twiday
like Jesus after an ice bath and after an ice bath, right,
and you like, you know, you guys would get along
really really well together. You should know each other. Okay,
thank you? People saying that, I'm like, yeah, okay, thank you.
I appreciate this. There, So he should speak at your conference.
You told me, well, every time I bagged a speaker
in my conferences in twenty years, it's been me. Uh,
(06:15):
you know, premier speaker. And so make a long story
shorts when you don't. This is a great interview. Uh.
I sent Jack a note and I think I blind
copied you because I didn't want to drag you into it,
asking him to come and speak, And you then responded
to the note unrequested and said, Jack, you really should
do this. John is a great guy. You guys are
kindred spirits, and I think you actually even called him.
(06:37):
I mean it was crazy, and you were leaving Square
at that point. Your life was complicated going to another company.
You were busy. You could have said I don't have
time for this. You didn't. You were like a dog
with a ball. You didn't give up until he said yes.
And that gentleman, that gentleman changed his schedule, went from
San Francisco to New York. He was going to a meeting,
change his schedule and moved from New York to Atlanta
(06:58):
to come speak at my con. He would have done
that had it not been you, for you vouching. We
now have a relationship and a friendship, but that came
through you. Little things like that, Sarah. Yeah, that's what
power well to me, that's the power of community coming
into play. And I think it starts with like what
can you give of yourself? Um, and sometimes it's a
(07:19):
network and someone that you know. This case is super easy,
right we I remember exactly the minute we met. You
got off the stage in that event, but we can't
really talk about where you had been talking about financial
inclusion and everything that you've built with Operation Hope, and
it's like it struck my heart, like the cord was
so strong that I bounded up to you because at
(07:43):
the same time at Square had helped kind of launch
and create score Capital, which was our lending business for
small businesses, and I saw in that product just how
much the little, the little guy, the little gal get
we would call it, discriminated off the system. It would
always be like, no, you can't get any money to
(08:04):
start your business because you're not a good enough entrepreneur,
you don't have a credit history or whatever, when in reality,
we had all the data, so we actually knew if
you were a great credit risk or not. And it
was nothing to do with what you looked like, um,
you know, or the name of your business or anything.
It was just pure data driven which always let a
(08:27):
pin next and when it come to that back to
them in just a moment. But I had seem just
to change people's lives. It resonated what you were doing,
and I knew it's something Jack really cared about. But
I do think it's this gift of how do you
connect like minded people because in the end, that is
the only thing that causes change in the world. Right
the never doubt the small group of people can change
(08:49):
the world because in fact, it's the only thing that
ever has, right, that wonderful market meat quote I fundamentally believe.
And so that is for me one of the gifts
that I can get of. It's also the gift that
so many people have given to me. Right, I'm the
super you know, girl that grew up in the farming
community in Northern Ireland, that had new network um and
(09:10):
yet have this amazing ability today to put a call
into most people and get to that person if it's
for the right reason and for the good of getting
stuff done. So you know, we you and I both
know that runs not so much on financial capital. I mean,
is convenient that we can say that we've got a
little bit of it, but but really relationship capital leads
(09:33):
to that financial capital. And if you hang around nine
broke people, you'll be the ten so and you have
some brilliant people who were born in the right family
or know the right people sorry not so smart people sorry,
born in the right family, know the right people not
so smart, not so bright, but succeed because they have
the right relationship capital. Converseity the opposite, true brilliant people
(09:53):
in the hood or rural America, whatever, whether you're poor white,
urban and black Latino can't or a woman can't get
share of voice? Why did you take a risk on me?
And and on so many other women? You're women and
others I've seen you backed them. There's some people that
you and I know Sarah, who won't pick up that
phone until it's safe. They won't send that email into
(10:15):
five other people send the email once you know now
that I'm successful or whatever, my phone rings off the hook.
People try to help me. But why did you do
that at the time that you did, and why do
you do that for so many more people? And I
want to and I think this has something to do
with Northern Ireland and raised and how you were raised
with your parents. Maybe I'm wrong, but how do you
get so dang on cool? Not perfect? I'm not perfect,
(10:37):
We're not perfect. We all screw up, we fall short
of the grace of God. But how did you get
so dang on cool and normal? Okay, west of all,
I'm a cool friend. I've got two teenagers, so let
me tell you I'm so far from cool. For my kids,
so one does I get grounded every single day? But
let's go back a moment to Northern Ireland. Because it
is at the center, right at the core, at the soul.
(10:59):
So I grew up in Northern Ireland during the troubles.
Most Americans don't know about it. They don't need to
know about it. There's a phenomenal book called Say Nothing
by Patrick rad and Keief if you ever want to
read about it. But that was my life growing up.
You know, it was a kind of very strange world
because on the one hand, we were at war literally
(11:20):
two sides right, all of the same religion, all kind
of christian Um Catholics Protestants who hated each other so
much they were willing to bring it to a war.
And so my local town, Strabane Wikipedia that it's got
a better bio than me because it literally is the
most bomb town of its size in all of Western
(11:42):
Europe for almost like a three or four decade period,
and that includes when like the Bosnian crisis is going on.
Straband still one most out of the year. Um. So
it's a you know, as an area there was a
real war, it was a bordered town. On the other side,
I grew up in this family of today we would
(12:02):
call them community activists. So I have a mom who's
the local nurse. She's the midwife. My dad is the
personal manager of the local mill, which is why the
village exists. And every night, like something would happen at
our back door would always be a knock, and if
someone had a health problem, or a baby was on
the way, or they had a financial problem, or often
(12:24):
what you get in poor communities, right, they met have
a domestic violence problem. I mean, there's all sorts of
quite horrible fans. My mom and dad would step up
and out of the dinner seat. They would leave their food.
There was no microwaves, so they weren't going to be
reheating it, and they would walk out the door and
they would talk to people or they bring them into
the kitchen if it was a cold knife. And so
(12:46):
my father and I, my brother and I would see
this happening over and over and over again, and I
think we saw a community get built, one human interaction
at a time. To this day, my parents still live there,
and when I go home, I'm just always so taken
with like there's still that fabric that glue in their community.
And so for me, that importance of always people first right,
(13:09):
It's my leadership, get your people right. Everything else just works.
It's my personal mantra like give back. And there's actually
since I joined next Door, we did research that shows that, um,
if you're feeling socially isolated, if you're feeling those feelings
of loneliness, one of the best things you can do
is just to get off your sofa and go outside
(13:31):
and do a random act of kindness. It has You
might think it's helping the other person, but here's like
the little selfish gene moment, it's helping you, helping you
the psychologically. That psychological effect has a deep physiological effect,
so it actually it's a cortisone rush that lowers blood pressure,
(13:54):
does a lot for just your health. And so people
worry all the time about running or eating well or
you know, having a dry January, when really maybe if
we all just did a random act of kindness a
couple of times a week, we'd all be much healthier.
So it comes from deep in that soul of Northern Ireland,
tough place to grow up, but then seeing a war
(14:15):
get ended ultimately because people can leaned around the table
to today, how can I do that on mass and
at scale? Like I don't have time in my life
for small which is why I will happily introduce you
to Jack Doorgon of you together are never gonna think small.
You're the ultimate kind of scalers of things. So hold on.
(14:35):
It's not right there. That's powerful. You don't have time
for small. I would say that slightly differently, but we're
so much in the same page. I'd say, it takes
the same energy to succeed big as this succeeds small,
takes the same energy to fail big as it will
fail small. Why would you spend your energy failing small?
(14:56):
I mean, if you're gonna do it, do it, and
so you don't have time to think think small. I
think that's the thing on topic, that's a subject or
the title for this whole podcast. That's the title of
our Lives. It's it's it's the lyrics of our lives.
But it also hit me, Sarah, what you're doing at
CEO of next Door to Day is what you're doing
as a child. Well, I mean, you're looking at what
(15:16):
your parents were doing, the kindness they showed to their neighbors.
You're going outside, you're meeting somebody else, usually just that
we have neighbors now and uh, you know, over a
hundred countries around the world. Uh, but you're meeting somebody,
you're talking to somebody, You're giving small acts of kindness,
You're you're putting stuff out there and believing it will
come back tenfold. When you introduced me to Jack, did
(15:38):
that vouch for me? A couple of years later, you
made a phone call to me. We won't disclose, but
it's about and and you you made a request of me.
I think I was actually doing a media interview at
that moment, and I just said, yes. It wasn't just
that I respected you and I liked you. I also
felt that you reached out for me. You you you you,
you staid and stood in for me, and this was
my chance to stand it for you. Isn't that the
(15:59):
way the world were? It's one? I mean, this is
karma in action to me, Like, there's always that moment where, um,
you fill the bucket. Right when my kids were little,
they had this book about filling the bucket um, And
it's this idea of like building up Like there's actually
real academic research about it, UM called building social capital.
And if you go back and look at you know,
(16:21):
think about the neighborhoods we grew up in or generationally,
if you'll go, I'll stay in the US. Right now,
if you look at kind of nine these twenties, thirties,
nineteen forties, nineteen fifties, kind of post war neighborhoods were
still incredibly cohesive and and people constantly filled the bucket
for each other. You might be the say, the volunteer fireman,
(16:42):
so you know, when the alarm would go off, it
was like the locals who all ran with their buckets
of sand and buckets of water or whatever, and they
volunteered locally, and so there was this very strong connection
in the neighborhood what we're kind of seen starting in
the actually in the six to seventies. Actually the advent
of TV sad like it brought people out of away
(17:05):
from the front stoop into the living room and then
they started partaking and entertainment. That was you know, supposedly
we're all watching the same program together, but we're having
a different experience. So it very kind of shifts from
a wee society to an eye society, and I think
keep tugging that thread. Where we are today right in
a world where we'd never be more connected, we will
also never been more isolated, right, And the media is
(17:27):
pushing us to believe that we're all incredibly polarized and
so on, and I am fearful of that because go
back to my beginning, right, we were told we were
so different from each other, Catholics and Protestants that we
kill each other. Um, like, that's polarization. That it's worse
because you know in the end, now, once I moved
from Northern Ireland and people be like, I just don't
(17:48):
understand the Northern Irish problem. Don't you all ultimately believe
in the same you know, religion, Like aren't you well Christian? Right?
There's all these other religions in the world. And so
it is that moment of realized, wow, we are getting
so polarized, which is why I come back to local
and to how do you fill that bucket knowing that
(18:08):
there is this wonderful moment in the world where when
you fill it, at some point you can actually take
stuff out of it and soul starts again. All right.
This is John Hopebryant and The Building The Good Life
podcast is brought to you by Prudential. For over one
and forty five years, millions of people have counterda and
Prudential to help solve for life's most important financial needs.
(18:28):
Because at Prudential they live their purpose to make lives
better by solving the most pressing financial challenges of our
changing world. Pridancial will continue to focus on financial literacy,
financial education, business development, and opportunities to provide financial products
and services to those disproportionately impacted here and around the world.
This is doing well by doing good. And I'm John
(18:49):
Hope Bryant. Do we have something else in commedy, which
is rainbows after storms? You cannot have a rainbow without
a storm. First, folks will read your bio uh as
short as it as you. I've been able to get
it and still find out that you're one of the
top one hundred Forbes self made women in the world.
That's pretty amazing. Up literally from nothing my last book,
(19:11):
from nothing again to a story of how we all succeed.
So but that has not been a better roses Um.
You and I can zoom right now. You're my peers
are peer groups because it's efficient, uh, and we can.
We've cut more deals in the last two years and
the law allows because it's efficient. We know each other.
There's credibility but people listening to this podcast, those those climbers,
(19:35):
a lot of them, most of them trying to aspire.
They need effectiveness more than efficiency. You get that personal
interaction because they're selling something, selling themselves, selling an idea
of selling a problem. So this digital only age that
some people wanted, it's actually harmful exclusively to partial relationships
and personal development. We had almost practice to be kind
(19:56):
again again the symbol for next door because we're been up,
because we're rusty, because we've we've been zooming and telephoning only.
So let's talk about your personal experience that's allowed you
to constantly remember it's about this, the extra step we
talked about Jack, that extra step of getting out of
(20:19):
your comfort zone. You've been hurt. I've been hurt probably
last week, tripped up, disappointed, somebody a chauvinist thinking you
should don't deserve to be CEO of next Door, CFO
of Square. Help the audience understand how you manage through pain,
through disappointment, how you've managed to build yourself in spite
(20:43):
of if not because of Yeah, there's so much in
there and so much that it's core is about resilience.
So a couple of things that really come to mind.
First on the resilience front, it's learning today. I have
a name for it. UM. There's a a framework called
icky Guy. It's a Japanese framework. It's four overlapping circles UM,
(21:05):
and it's about where do you find flow? And the
reason it's a Japanese framework it was done from research
about blue zones where people live the longest. Why do
you live the longest? Right, because you live in the
zone where you're not your body and your physical bodies
not under stress. And the four overlapping circles are what
are you good at? What do you love? Right, So
that's kind of a passion, but what the world needs,
(21:27):
So now you're getting into it's not just a mission.
And the fourth is what can you get paid for? Because,
as actually a really good woman said at one of
one of the events I've run for women, said, if
you don't get paid, it's a hobby. So that's fine,
but it's not a job. So thinking about, like where
you have flow is something that gives me than resilience.
(21:49):
So to your point, when you get the hard knocks
of life and people put you down, you can kind
of rebound because you have this you've learned how to
protect your own resilience, like your core. There's also an
arc of time that I think you have to remember.
So one of my first jobs, my first internship ever,
when I was at university, I went to work on
(22:11):
this gold mine in Ghana, and I was really intrigued
with the whole scientific process. And I got there and
the beautiful thing was seeing something in science come alive
in real life. It was super inspiring. It's like, oh
my god, I like this is what I want to do.
But the environment was so sexist that at the end
(22:32):
of that whatever eight week period, I was like, I
actually can't do this. There's not even though I love
science and like I think this is what I want
to do with my life, I will never be successful
in this environment, both because of like harmful sexism and
also just the unseen things, right, the fact that every
(22:54):
time the men were going underground check out the mind,
I'd have to fight to go as them because like
that wasn't a woman's place. And I was like, well,
I'll ever do the job if I can't go to
the place where the work is happening, or when there
was tea to be made, there was just this assumption
that I would make the tea and I would find
meself doing that, which I'm like all sorts of crazy now,
(23:16):
but I would just fall into the trap of being like, Okay,
well I'll make the tea, um because I'm helpful. UM.
So at the time, I didn't have the tools to
either pushback, stand up for myself, or aspire like the
whole you can't be what you can't see, like, I
couldn't see anyone that looked like me that was actually
(23:37):
being successful in that environment. So my reaction at the
time was like, okay, not for me, went home like
I'm out of this business. I'm going to become a
consultant because that seems way more doable. There are women,
you know, some not that many. Um. And then the
nice twist of fate is because I had done that,
(23:58):
McKinsey sent me to South after job because that was
where all their minding clients were. I was one of
the few people at the firm that had done anything
in a mind um, and I got to experience this
amazing moment. But I went to South Africa ninety six,
so a part that had just ended. I mean, it
was an experience of a lifetime, but pulling the thread.
(24:18):
So now I'm sitting at square, I have this inbound
to become the CEO of next door. I'm like, it's crazy.
I love what I do, love the people. It wasn't
was an inbound, mean Sarah, Well like a RECRUITERI was
actually again back to your point of relationships, make the
world on. Tons of recruiter called me all the time
like if you want to be the CEO of this
or that? Just didn't take their calls. I'm like, not interested,
(24:41):
speak to the hand. I'm here for life. But a
person called me who was hold on did you just sell?
Like assisted? Did you say speak to the hand? Speak
to the hand? Felicia. But a person who was a
recruiter but also we've worked together actually on some in
a nonprofit zone, and I was like, okay, I'll take
(25:02):
this call because it's like my friend and he managed
to hook the little worm that was like, oh, maybe
I should consider this. And you know, after a lot
of back and forth, I had a moment with my
kids where we were watching um, that movie The Notorious
RBG all about Ruth Vader Ginsburg and there's this moment
where you kind of have this like, Wow, this woman
(25:25):
spent her whole life lifting women up standing for women's rights.
And I just got like the goose bump moment, like
the tears prickling in my eyes moment. And my husband
looked at me and he said, you're gonna do it,
and I was like, I actually have to, because this
is my moment where I'm going to be what others
(25:47):
can see so that my daughter and my son see
that women can be CEOs, particularly ultimately not CEOs of
public companies. But it goes back to that moment in
Ghana A feeling completely impedent, and so you asked me, like,
how do you stay resilient? I have the benefit now
of like a longer term career where I know that
(26:09):
time will pass and I will get another crack at
that thing. When you're younger in your career, you can
really feel like I feel so in like when I'm
I ever going to get changed. But I would kind
of say remember that there's you know time as long
as you stay keep it in your core and really
don't let it naught you, but let it energize you,
(26:31):
because you are going to come back and make that change.
It's just not a it's not an if, it's a when.
That's been the other thing that I think has saved
me from the hard knocks of life of like, okay,
this is this hasn't killed me, and it's going to
power me. I don't know when, but I am coming
back to this to fix this, but I'm going to
do it when I have more power to fix it.
(26:53):
That makes sense, Yes, Dr king Uh. It was famously
said the law the arc of of the ark of
the universe is long, but it bends towards freedom and justice.
And what I'm hearing you saying is basically, you're part
of resiliency. Is not necessarily that you're stroggle than somebody else,
is that you never give up. Yes, I am like water.
(27:18):
I am going to eventually grind you down. That's right.
I'm going to realize it. That's right. Over the round
it through it, We're gonna get to it. Never ever, ever,
ever ever give up. And and so half of this
life is just showing up and never giving up, isn't
it right? That's so true? Oh my goodness, I'll last.
Like another great woman that I worked with because a
(27:38):
dear friend. Now, she would always say, never leave the
table if you're never leave the table. She's like, literally,
I stopped drinking so that I don't even have to
go to the bathroom. But I am not going to
be the person that leaves the table first. So and
and when you're a minority or a person of color
or a woman, sometimes you can overdo that, that overdo
(28:00):
the confidence. I don't know about you, but with me,
I remember the CEO of of Who's now Trust used
to be uh sent Trust, Bill Rogers. He had given
me a million dollar grant. This is from my philanthropy
operation Hope, and it was my first big million dollar check.
And I walked in to get the checks there and
(28:21):
I was like, oh, thank you, and I have a
vision here. We're gonna do this, We're gonna do that,
and we're going here, and we're going there, and he
should sitting there and finally we were friends. He looked
at me and said, John, take yes for uh an answer,
Take yes for an answer, and get out of my
office before I take the million dollars back. So I don't.
I sort of I sort of sold past the clothes, um,
(28:42):
but but I do believe that when you're when you're
and this is for all again, all the dreamers out there,
you've gotta You may not get early on a second
shot at the first impression. So get up early, stay
up late, work harder, study study longer. I know, Sarah,
when you're your walks, you're thinking, you're reflecting. You make
(29:03):
every moment count. Uh so really, haters have made you better? Totally?
Oh my god, Yes, because they are a fire in
the belly. Um, you don't want to live your life
on like grudget, Like you don't want to get it
in a negative zone. But I just view it as
a prove it zone. Um, you are helping me. You
don't even realize it, but you are helping me. And
(29:26):
I think that's a I mean, I do think it's
part of resiliency. Is that optimistic gene I get it
from my dad. So thankful, but it is the finding
you don't wanna be pollyannish like some things are just
truly horrible, but trying to find the piece of strength
inside the big negative like, I think that also can
(29:48):
be a great trait in life. Um. I do really
buy into kind of practicing gratitude, and I do it
in all sorts of ways. John, you know this because
you said on a board with me, and so it
can make people really awkward. But I find when you
start a meeting with a moment of gratitude just around
the room, it does two things. It first of all,
(30:08):
just helps break the ice, and you get to know people,
I think, on a different level, because you'll find some
people will be grateful for you know, the revenue growth
rate they just put up, and then other people will say,
I'm really grateful because you know, my kid just did
court a goal this weekend. Right, see these kind of
very you know, I think everyone you sit at a
(30:29):
table often we can come across as like almost robotic, right,
You can get in all of them, and I think
if you get them to drop into a personal zone,
it's a very it's a very quick way to kind
of form a bond. But secondly, again back to kind
of the physiological psychological connection, just the endorphins that go
through us when we think with gratefulness are huge, but
(30:51):
then allow you to approach really tough problems, really contentious
conversations in just a much different and much more different
constructive zone. And even if you can just hold yourself
in that zone for like seconds, that can make all
the difference to you know, like pushing away from the table,
walking out of the room, not being able to find
(31:13):
the way to make the deal happen. You can just
force yourself to sit at the table a little bit
longer and with a kind of an open, constructive, grateful mind,
you often can find the piece of commonality that can
get the deal done or whatever it is you're kind
of get done in life. But often it's around you're
making a deal. Like might not call it that, but
often you're trying to get a piece of work done. Yeah,
(31:35):
I'm hearing a couple of couple of things. One is
talk without being offensive, Listen without being defensive, always even
your adversary your duty. The second thing I'm hearing is
very much like working out. You want to warm up
the muscles so it relaxes. So if you warmed up
that room, people relax uh. And that allows you to
(31:57):
deal with difficult conversations, situations, and ultimately though, because you're
ultimately prepared and you know your your data code. What
I'm hearing you saying is I hope you like me,
but you're gonna respect me, Or put another way, I'd
rather you respect me and learn to like me, then
like me and never respect me, and by the way,
and work like women in particularly to say this all
(32:19):
the time, you go to work to be respected, not
to be liked, like it's like a great outcome. But
respected is what you're there for, like have your friends
at home, But you don't need to belove it work
if you're getting your work done. Now, I think what
you find is if you are at the top of
your game, people really respect you. They can't help but
ultimately like you because they'll find that that nugget. But yes,
(32:42):
do not, oh my gosh, do not think that you
need to be liked in a work environment. I think
that that's a real nugget for people who are watching this,
listening to this, trying to figure out what can I
hold on too? I don't think I can be I didn't.
I didn't think before this I could be serafied. But
but but there's but there's a you know, if you
can pick up three, four or five nuggets here and
(33:04):
hold onto them, you actually can emulate her life because
that's how she operates. She operates on a very small
set of core principles. It's just the stage has gotten bigger.
Let's pivot before we run out of time. Let's pivot
to your current position and next Door CEO, what's your goal,
what's your mission, what's what's what's what's got you on
(33:26):
fire about next doors and larger social network of neighborhoods
in the world, which I'm sure people know just went public.
Kudos to you. UH was one of the few UH
deals with a spact that had a very small redemption rate.
For those who understand, that means that means the investors
didn't sell off the stock when the deal closed, it
(33:47):
kept it. It was like it was in the team.
I mean it was in the single digits, low single digits,
and and typically it's the other way around, you have
a nine percent. People were just selling it, just making
their money going away. That's because they believed in Sarah.
In my view, So what's going on with with next Door,
with your future vision where we're going, And then and
then leave the audience, if you will, Sarah, think about
(34:10):
the woman, think of the young girl version of you.
Think about the inn inner city black or brown girl
trying to come up UH in a in a so
called man's world. Think about the the rural, the rural white,
young little girl who's not plugged into the power structure. Uh.
Think about the young strivers, male or female. What do
(34:33):
you leave them with? What building advice? How do they build? Uh,
something they can they can hold on to return to
as a concept and remembering right down for the future.
Those two questions, Okay, they're both awesome questions. So I'll
start with next door because I really want to land
the second one because in some way so I think
it's so important, um on next door, you know, simplistically, right,
(34:56):
our our our purpose is to cultivate a kinder world
where everyone is a neighborhood to rely on. And so
it harks back to what I was talking about and
all of that research. But if we can, you know,
learn to love local, localism is on the rise, if
we can find our community, find the commonality. Right. And
you know, there's disaster moments where I think humans are
(35:17):
humans we reach out of hand. Right. If you were
in Hurricane Harvey and literally someone was going past you
in a raging torrent, you stick out your hand, You
pull them out, right, You don't say excuse me? How
do you vote? And how do you feel about you know,
insert some societal problem you don't you just act pull
up personality save them at a moment. Now, I don't
(35:39):
want the neighborhood to be under that amount of dress
for people to put out a hand. And again I
think it's in the in local you can find your
commonality because I think on a lot of social it
doesn't matter what commonalities. You just want to shout the
other person down. And and honestly, the truth of it is,
most people are not persuadable. The more you try to
(36:01):
persuade them, the more entrenched they're getting. So actually, like
trying to persuade them, you are digging them further into
their belief system versus Locally, you can like stand next
to someone in the coffee shop and open the door
for them, or you can find out, as I said,
if your parents and you want to put like traffic
(36:21):
bumps in the road to slow down traffic. Again, these
are things you can work on together that are good
for your community, regardless of what you believe, believe you believe. Okay,
So that's what next door is all about. It often
starts with utility, so people come first for the help
me find a babysitter, help me find a great local
coffee shop. They stay for the community, like help me
(36:44):
find the local mom's group, help me find the local
elderly group. Right, I'm lonely, Right. I just talked to
that neighbor in Australia who had created a hiking group
for the over seventies I think it was. And they're
almost all women, because the sad thing is we all
live you so we end up ourselves. And so it
was all women and he had this sprightly eighty seven
(37:06):
year old who he has to slow down. But you know, again,
you can't do that, like if you're getting in a
Facebook group or a Twitter group, because the people can't
go on a hike with you they don't actually live
around you. So the next door is very much but local.
As you said, we're in one of three households in
the US. We're in eleven countries around the world thousand neighborhoods,
(37:27):
so we're having an impact. But I don't want to
do anything small. We can be a lot bigger. So
if you're not on next door, come join us and
be part of that active names totally. Yeah, it's totally
free because our job is to help you do what
you need to do to just make your life easier
now on the young girl, young boy individual growing up
(37:49):
without the privilege that today I can now have. But
I really empathize with what it feels like to kind
of have nothing. Um. First of all, I would actually
start with people like you and I write the first
thing you do when you get a seat at the table,
as you stand up, you turn around, you reach out
the hand and you pull up a chair for someone else. Right,
So so it's up to all of us to constantly
(38:10):
be on the lookout and say, okay, how can we
go give back? And sometimes you know, I'll go do
a talk at a local school, or I'll talk to
like in the UK, the w I and since you
my team gets so mad with me, they're like, why
are you doing this? Like it's not a good use
of your time. But I kind of believe there's a
karma there. Right in my life, there were just these
kind of moments where it felt like fate reached through
(38:32):
the wall and did something for me. So if I
could pay some of that back, that's important. I think
for those people sitting in those seats, don't be afraid
to reach out, Like, the worst thing that can happen
is someone says no, and you are no better or
no worse off. If anything, maybe you've learned that you
shouldn't ask that why there's a different way to ask,
(38:52):
So make the ask. Um. I often talked about mentors
in my life being someone I work with because they
see me, can actually give me real time feedback. Someone
I used to work with because they give they have
the truth serum that I wish they'd had when I
worked with them. But then that big aspirational person where
you're like, they will never mentor me, but you find
a way to them. Um. I when I was at
(39:16):
in banking and it was super junior, brand new associate
just wanted to do like good. I really was just
in awe of this woman who was the vice chairman
of Golden sachs Um and I just wanted like ten
minutes of her time. And so Number one, I found
the way to get to senior people is usually through
their assistance, their executive sistance. Those people own everything, So
(39:40):
if you're kind of suck up, that's your person. Um.
The second thing is they are not going to change
their time or calendar for you. You have to fit
around them. And ultimately how I got ten minutes with
her as her assistant called me. He said, she said,
she's about to drive to Midtown, where Goldman at the
(40:00):
time was down at the tip of Manhattan. She's going
to be in a cab. You have the time it
takes you to go for me to be the only
time my life in New York goes praying for traffic.
I'm likermous traffic chance. But she got in the cab,
and I got in the cab, and she's a little
bit like uh and she's like, oh yeah, that's right.
And and then I had asked like real, it wasn't
(40:22):
just like mentor me, that's the other thing that people
shop were like enter me. And I'm like, okay, I
don't have any time for that. What are your problems
and let's see what we can work on. And so
I'm prepared with like here here's a real ask what
would you do? And then follow up and don't by
the way, not the way not monetary, don't ask him
for money, don't ask don't ask him for a loan,
(40:44):
don't ask him for a job. Okay, go ahead, yeah,
just find that. It's more of like a fundamental like
I you know, I am struggling with being heard. Um,
I think I had some really good ideas, but they
often get dismissed or you know, seem to have just
breathe past them. But if a man says them, suddenly
it's like, you know, the earth moved. Um. She was like, Okay,
(41:07):
I know exactly what you're talking about. Here's a way
to be heard. And it was just such good potent advice. Um.
And equally later asking her to be my sponsor, my advocate,
not my mentor, was incredibly important and understanding the difference,
so you know, in the door is mentorship, and then
(41:27):
at some point tipping that relationship so that person, assuming
they're in your orbit, can actually go to bat for
you as well. I think often and by the way,
all the men listening love you all dearly, But often
men forget that they're not supposed to be advocates, so
they don't speak up right. I was. I was listening
to in the Noise Book and it's excellent, and she
(41:50):
says when women are being reviewed, what you'll hear from
men is like he did all these things mostly hit
his goals, and and then for women it's like she
all our goals. It's amazing what she accomplished. But but
I agree, and so as sponsors, you have to be
(42:10):
there for the moment with the butt to say, now
it's an end here, the thing that's right, that's right,
and and but and you need and you as an
individual need to actually prep what you want those people
to say, because no one's got any time. But if
you give them some talking points, they're going to do it.
So you know, I would really be on your front
(42:31):
foot and don't be ashamed to kind of your own
horn in that moment with what's going to come after
the end or how are you going to make sure
there's no butt? So coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.
As we wrap this great session up, Sarah didn't know
that one of my true fundamental p beliefs in this
world is you never want to have a button next
(42:52):
to your name. That's what you don't want to leave
a room. And somebody says, you know, I really like
John Bryan, but you know I really respect John Bryan.
But you know I would invest in his venture, but
you know I would be a philanthropic investor to his philanthropy.
But I worked my whotel of my whole life, so
(43:14):
that you can say you don't like the way I dressed,
the way I walked, the way I talked, But there
never be a butt that was substitutive tied to my
my name because I got up early, state up, later,
worked harder, showed up when no one else did. Uh
And and I wanted to create a bond in that
first conversation because it may be the only conversation we
(43:34):
ever had, and so that you wanted to so that
there was a connective tissue that we could come back
to later. And I think that's what you were also
talking about. You created a lot of connective tissue in
this world where there's a lot of folks want to
bat for you. I can't. I love what somebody calls
me about Sarah Fryer, so I have an opportunity to
tell them what a good leader looks like. Again, not perfect, perfect,
(43:59):
boring exists where you know, what Sarah I try to
do is become reasonably comfortable in our own skin. And
that's I think a real gift for anybody listening to
this And if your own leader watching this or listening
to this podcast, I want you to know that one
of the most boring and underwhelming thing you can do
in your life is to do nothing. Sit there and
(44:19):
clip your coupons and cash your bonus checks and do
nothing for nobody. If you want a legacy, you gotta
reach out to extend beyond yourself. And that's what Sarah
has done. And she's extended beyond herself personally, and now
she's got a job as CEO of next Door where
(44:40):
she's doing that professionally. Next Door is all about extending
with kindness, uh and a business plan that does well
and does good at the same time, beyond oneself. This
is John O'Brien. You just heard a master class on
leadership with Sarah Fryer, the CEO of next Door, publicly
(45:01):
traded company under the ticker Signal Kind, former CFO of Square,
born in Northern Ireland. Built of resiliency. She doesn't want,
like me to walk out of a room and have
somebody leave with the word. But oftentimes a man gets
the benefit of talking about another man being reviewed by
(45:23):
another man. Of the end, he did this good job
and this and that, and he's a good golfer, and
you know we went to the same college. Oftentimes, if
you're a minority of your woman, you'll get a butt.
He did a decent job, but he needs to work
on this. But he didn't fit into the social fabric.
But he doesn't have a sponsor in the company whatever
(45:43):
the thing is, because of society is not necessarily a
level playing field. You can't get angry, you can't get
a great or a chip on your shoulder. The world
will see it and tax you for it. You got
a step over mess and not in it. The man
is your class. Here is replace yourself the with the
(46:04):
absence of someone else providing, and you're removing your work.
But when I leave a room, I make sure they
can't say, you know, I really respect John Brian, but
you know how to invest in his business. But you
know I would support his philanthropy. But the butts the
killer because it gives people an excuse who don't want
(46:26):
to necessarily help you anyway, not to You want to overwork,
over prepare, show up early, stay late, do the job
nobody wants. Don't do it with a chip on your shoulder.
Let the haters make you better. Show up and give
everybody an excuse to have the work. And next to
your name, this is John Hobrian and This is building
a good life. Building the good life with John Hope
(46:49):
Bryant is brought to you by Credential Financial
Building the Good Life with John Hope Bryant is brought
to you by Potential Financial Since I joined next Door,
we did research that shows that, um, if you're feeling
socially isolated, if you're feeling those feelings of loneliness, one
of the best things you can do is just to
get off your sofa and go outside and do a
random act of kindness. You might think it's helping the
(00:20):
other person, but here's like the little selfish gene moment.
It's helping you. That's right, helping you the psychologically. That
psychological effect has a deep physiological effect, and so people
worry all the time about running or eating well or
you know, having a dry January, when really, maybe if
(00:41):
we all just did a random act of kindness a
couple of times a week, we'd all be much healthier. Hi,
this is John Hope Bryant, and this is Building the
Good Life, and I'm with my dear friend Sarah Bryan,
who you know as chief executive officer of the publicly
traded company next Door, symbol kind cool. A little bit
(01:01):
about Sarah before we get into this. She grew up
in Northern Ireland. She graduated from the University of Oxford
and Stanford University. She was an analyst for Mackenzie. She
was an analyst at Goman Sacks. None of this so far,
it's extraordinary, But here's where it starts to get interested.
She then became chief financial officer at Square, working with
(01:24):
a brilliant guy named Jack Dorsey, who I know because
of her, and she is serves on the board of
both Slack and Walmart. Now, this has to be the smallest, simplest,
most understated, underrated bio I've ever read. That's I mean,
that's literally her whole bio on wikipe. But that doesn't
that doesn't give you a thimble of who this person is.
(01:48):
And if you ever noticed, she's a woman. And how
do you go from being a U an analyst at
Mackenzie and Goldman Sacks and being a CFO chief financial officer.
That's serious. You're watching the money, the moulah, the Dallas,
the cash, the bills, the wealth um at the Square,
one of the biggest companies now in the world. UM
(02:11):
working for investors who don't uh sleep and have no
patience for no pun intended to Slack. She's also on
the board of Slack of Walmart. So we're gonna get
into this. Welcome my friend Sarah Fry. Thank you, John
Way too kind. I hate biles, which is why my
bio is not something you've spent a lot of time on.
I always think it sounds like your eulogy, like maybe
(02:34):
you've died. Um, so you're right, much more interesting to
get to know the person and the human and so
let's do that. So uh on that note, And I
knew that, like most things in your life, I knew
that you had some hand in in curating how short
that bio was because you, like me, you're control free.
(02:54):
And I mean that in the most positive way. You
know that we control our environment. We don't let somebody
else control it to that we can. Uh. The reality
is a lot of our environment is out of our control.
Uh So in some ways we're sort of grasping in
the distance with dark shades on at night. But that
doesn't mean you can't lead without fright, and you lead
(03:17):
without fright. I'm gonna give an example for the audience,
So full disclosure by every what everybody I'm on the
board of next Door, which we'll get to in a moment.
Just disclosure for everybody that I have a business relationship
also it Sarah, Um, but we're we're we're kind of
the same cloth for sure. But I didn't know that literally,
she didn't know that literally intuitively knew it. There's three
(03:40):
women that I can think of who've given me something.
I'm sure there are others. So if you're watching this
and listening this and it supplies that, you don't be offended. Uh.
Susan Actually Susan Johnson, chief marketing officer at Prudential, sponsors
this podcast series as an example. She's not a gift
giving but she didn't believe what we're doing. But Sarah
(04:01):
Friar is under is a path to hunt of of
women who, for no good business reason, did something nice
for me, something kind. Um, my mother, she birthing me
was her was her responsibility raising me? What sort of
her she she's showing, I had to do it, by
the way, well as exactly no good desho go and
(04:26):
punishes as a parent, as a domestic engineer, Sarah, but
my mother invested in my first business, which you know,
I don't think she wanted to do. But you know,
she's like, yeah, but I believe in you. I'm sorry
she but she invested in the first business. She didn't
want to do that. She didn't want to invest in
my my business later on, which she was gonna be
a bust. She was right, Okay, So my mother invested
my business, Shaitra, my wife invested in another business I
(04:48):
had for African art art. When I didn't have the
money to take the inventory across the country. She just
gave me her credit card when I sold it. After
what was her cut? She said, what do you mean?
What cut? We're friends, That's why I trust her so much. Right,
she has no agenda. And the third person that comes
to mind is you. Isn't that weird? I mean, it's
(05:09):
weird beautiful? Do you know this? Do you know? Do
you know what I'm referring to? I'm wondering where you're
going with us because I feel like you're I mean,
too much credit. So what's the moment? Because I feel
a very strong connection. So you and I met in
the place that we can't talk about, an undisclosed location
public by the way, we just can't talk about it.
And we didn't know each other all that way, although
(05:31):
we had sort of bonded fibe wise and energy wise
and uh, one day either I called you or you
called me, And I think you called me and said,
do you know Jack Dorsey and you too would be
great together? And I'm like, well, no, I don't know,
but who doesn't know Jack Dorsey founders, Twitter Square, billionaires.
You know, Brady got cool walks to work with sandals
(05:52):
on for for an hour, you know, a day Twiday
like Jesus after an ice bath and after an ice bath, right,
and you like, you know, you guys would get along
really really well together. You should know each other. Okay,
thank you? People saying that, I'm like, yeah, okay, thank you.
I appreciate this. There, So he should speak at your conference.
You told me, well, every time I bagged a speaker
in my conferences in twenty years, it's been me. Uh,
(06:15):
you know, premier speaker. And so make a long story
shorts when you don't. This is a great interview. Uh.
I sent Jack a note and I think I blind
copied you because I didn't want to drag you into it,
asking him to come and speak, And you then responded
to the note unrequested and said, Jack, you really should
do this. John is a great guy. You guys are
kindred spirits, and I think you actually even called him.
(06:37):
I mean it was crazy, and you were leaving Square
at that point. Your life was complicated going to another company.
You were busy. You could have said I don't have
time for this. You didn't. You were like a dog
with a ball. You didn't give up until he said yes.
And that gentleman, that gentleman changed his schedule, went from
San Francisco to New York. He was going to a meeting,
change his schedule and moved from New York to Atlanta
(06:58):
to come speak at my con. He would have done
that had it not been you, for you vouching. We
now have a relationship and a friendship, but that came
through you. Little things like that, Sarah. Yeah, that's what
power well to me, that's the power of community coming
into play. And I think it starts with like what
can you give of yourself? Um, and sometimes it's a
(07:19):
network and someone that you know. This case is super easy,
right we I remember exactly the minute we met. You
got off the stage in that event, but we can't
really talk about where you had been talking about financial
inclusion and everything that you've built with Operation Hope, and
it's like it struck my heart, like the cord was
so strong that I bounded up to you because at
(07:43):
the same time at Square had helped kind of launch
and create score Capital, which was our lending business for
small businesses, and I saw in that product just how
much the little, the little guy, the little gal get
we would call it, discriminated off the system. It would
always be like, no, you can't get any money to
(08:04):
start your business because you're not a good enough entrepreneur,
you don't have a credit history or whatever, when in reality,
we had all the data, so we actually knew if
you were a great credit risk or not. And it
was nothing to do with what you looked like, um,
you know, or the name of your business or anything.
It was just pure data driven which always let a
(08:27):
pin next and when it come to that back to
them in just a moment. But I had seem just
to change people's lives. It resonated what you were doing,
and I knew it's something Jack really cared about. But
I do think it's this gift of how do you
connect like minded people because in the end, that is
the only thing that causes change in the world. Right
the never doubt the small group of people can change
(08:49):
the world because in fact, it's the only thing that
ever has, right, that wonderful market meat quote I fundamentally believe.
And so that is for me one of the gifts
that I can get of. It's also the gift that
so many people have given to me. Right, I'm the
super you know, girl that grew up in the farming
community in Northern Ireland, that had new network um and
(09:10):
yet have this amazing ability today to put a call
into most people and get to that person if it's
for the right reason and for the good of getting
stuff done. So you know, we you and I both
know that runs not so much on financial capital. I mean,
is convenient that we can say that we've got a
little bit of it, but but really relationship capital leads
(09:33):
to that financial capital. And if you hang around nine
broke people, you'll be the ten so and you have
some brilliant people who were born in the right family
or know the right people sorry not so smart people sorry,
born in the right family, know the right people not
so smart, not so bright, but succeed because they have
the right relationship capital. Converseity the opposite, true brilliant people
(09:53):
in the hood or rural America, whatever, whether you're poor white,
urban and black Latino can't or a woman can't get
share of voice? Why did you take a risk on me?
And and on so many other women? You're women and
others I've seen you backed them. There's some people that
you and I know Sarah, who won't pick up that
phone until it's safe. They won't send that email into
(10:15):
five other people send the email once you know now
that I'm successful or whatever, my phone rings off the hook.
People try to help me. But why did you do
that at the time that you did, and why do
you do that for so many more people? And I
want to and I think this has something to do
with Northern Ireland and raised and how you were raised
with your parents. Maybe I'm wrong, but how do you
get so dang on cool? Not perfect? I'm not perfect,
(10:37):
We're not perfect. We all screw up, we fall short
of the grace of God. But how did you get
so dang on cool and normal? Okay, west of all,
I'm a cool friend. I've got two teenagers, so let
me tell you I'm so far from cool. For my kids,
so one does I get grounded every single day? But
let's go back a moment to Northern Ireland. Because it
is at the center, right at the core, at the soul.
(10:59):
So I grew up in Northern Ireland during the troubles.
Most Americans don't know about it. They don't need to
know about it. There's a phenomenal book called Say Nothing
by Patrick rad and Keief if you ever want to
read about it. But that was my life growing up.
You know, it was a kind of very strange world
because on the one hand, we were at war literally
(11:20):
two sides right, all of the same religion, all kind
of christian Um Catholics Protestants who hated each other so
much they were willing to bring it to a war.
And so my local town, Strabane Wikipedia that it's got
a better bio than me because it literally is the
most bomb town of its size in all of Western
(11:42):
Europe for almost like a three or four decade period,
and that includes when like the Bosnian crisis is going on.
Straband still one most out of the year. Um. So
it's a you know, as an area there was a
real war, it was a bordered town. On the other side,
I grew up in this family of today we would
(12:02):
call them community activists. So I have a mom who's
the local nurse. She's the midwife. My dad is the
personal manager of the local mill, which is why the
village exists. And every night, like something would happen at
our back door would always be a knock, and if
someone had a health problem, or a baby was on
the way, or they had a financial problem, or often
(12:24):
what you get in poor communities, right, they met have
a domestic violence problem. I mean, there's all sorts of
quite horrible fans. My mom and dad would step up
and out of the dinner seat. They would leave their food.
There was no microwaves, so they weren't going to be
reheating it, and they would walk out the door and
they would talk to people or they bring them into
the kitchen if it was a cold knife. And so
(12:46):
my father and I, my brother and I would see
this happening over and over and over again, and I
think we saw a community get built, one human interaction
at a time. To this day, my parents still live there,
and when I go home, I'm just always so taken
with like there's still that fabric that glue in their community.
And so for me, that importance of always people first right,
(13:09):
It's my leadership, get your people right. Everything else just works.
It's my personal mantra like give back. And there's actually
since I joined next Door, we did research that shows that, um,
if you're feeling socially isolated, if you're feeling those feelings
of loneliness, one of the best things you can do
is just to get off your sofa and go outside
(13:31):
and do a random act of kindness. It has You
might think it's helping the other person, but here's like
the little selfish gene moment, it's helping you, helping you
the psychologically. That psychological effect has a deep physiological effect,
so it actually it's a cortisone rush that lowers blood pressure,
(13:54):
does a lot for just your health. And so people
worry all the time about running or eating well or
you know, having a dry January, when really maybe if
we all just did a random act of kindness a
couple of times a week, we'd all be much healthier.
So it comes from deep in that soul of Northern Ireland,
tough place to grow up, but then seeing a war
(14:15):
get ended ultimately because people can leaned around the table
to today, how can I do that on mass and
at scale? Like I don't have time in my life
for small which is why I will happily introduce you
to Jack Doorgon of you together are never gonna think small.
You're the ultimate kind of scalers of things. So hold on.
(14:35):
It's not right there. That's powerful. You don't have time
for small. I would say that slightly differently, but we're
so much in the same page. I'd say, it takes
the same energy to succeed big as this succeeds small,
takes the same energy to fail big as it will
fail small. Why would you spend your energy failing small?
(14:56):
I mean, if you're gonna do it, do it, and
so you don't have time to think think small. I
think that's the thing on topic, that's a subject or
the title for this whole podcast. That's the title of
our Lives. It's it's it's the lyrics of our lives.
But it also hit me, Sarah, what you're doing at
CEO of next Door to Day is what you're doing
as a child. Well, I mean, you're looking at what
(15:16):
your parents were doing, the kindness they showed to their neighbors.
You're going outside, you're meeting somebody else, usually just that
we have neighbors now and uh, you know, over a
hundred countries around the world. Uh, but you're meeting somebody,
you're talking to somebody, You're giving small acts of kindness,
You're you're putting stuff out there and believing it will
come back tenfold. When you introduced me to Jack, did
(15:38):
that vouch for me? A couple of years later, you
made a phone call to me. We won't disclose, but
it's about and and you you made a request of me.
I think I was actually doing a media interview at
that moment, and I just said, yes. It wasn't just
that I respected you and I liked you. I also
felt that you reached out for me. You you you you,
you staid and stood in for me, and this was
my chance to stand it for you. Isn't that the
(15:59):
way the world were? It's one? I mean, this is
karma in action to me, Like, there's always that moment where, um,
you fill the bucket. Right when my kids were little,
they had this book about filling the bucket um, And
it's this idea of like building up Like there's actually
real academic research about it, UM called building social capital.
And if you go back and look at you know,
(16:21):
think about the neighborhoods we grew up in or generationally,
if you'll go, I'll stay in the US. Right now,
if you look at kind of nine these twenties, thirties,
nineteen forties, nineteen fifties, kind of post war neighborhoods were
still incredibly cohesive and and people constantly filled the bucket
for each other. You might be the say, the volunteer fireman,
(16:42):
so you know, when the alarm would go off, it
was like the locals who all ran with their buckets
of sand and buckets of water or whatever, and they
volunteered locally, and so there was this very strong connection
in the neighborhood what we're kind of seen starting in
the actually in the six to seventies. Actually the advent
of TV sad like it brought people out of away
(17:05):
from the front stoop into the living room and then
they started partaking and entertainment. That was you know, supposedly
we're all watching the same program together, but we're having
a different experience. So it very kind of shifts from
a wee society to an eye society, and I think
keep tugging that thread. Where we are today right in
a world where we'd never be more connected, we will
also never been more isolated, right, And the media is
(17:27):
pushing us to believe that we're all incredibly polarized and
so on, and I am fearful of that because go
back to my beginning, right, we were told we were
so different from each other, Catholics and Protestants that we
kill each other. Um, like, that's polarization. That it's worse
because you know in the end, now, once I moved
from Northern Ireland and people be like, I just don't
(17:48):
understand the Northern Irish problem. Don't you all ultimately believe
in the same you know, religion, Like aren't you well Christian? Right?
There's all these other religions in the world. And so
it is that moment of realized, wow, we are getting
so polarized, which is why I come back to local
and to how do you fill that bucket knowing that
(18:08):
there is this wonderful moment in the world where when
you fill it, at some point you can actually take
stuff out of it and soul starts again. All right.
This is John Hopebryant and The Building The Good Life
podcast is brought to you by Prudential. For over one
and forty five years, millions of people have counterda and
Prudential to help solve for life's most important financial needs.
(18:28):
Because at Prudential they live their purpose to make lives
better by solving the most pressing financial challenges of our
changing world. Pridancial will continue to focus on financial literacy,
financial education, business development, and opportunities to provide financial products
and services to those disproportionately impacted here and around the world.
This is doing well by doing good. And I'm John
(18:49):
Hope Bryant. Do we have something else in commedy, which
is rainbows after storms? You cannot have a rainbow without
a storm. First, folks will read your bio uh as
short as it as you. I've been able to get
it and still find out that you're one of the
top one hundred Forbes self made women in the world.
That's pretty amazing. Up literally from nothing my last book,
(19:11):
from nothing again to a story of how we all succeed.
So but that has not been a better roses Um.
You and I can zoom right now. You're my peers
are peer groups because it's efficient, uh, and we can.
We've cut more deals in the last two years and
the law allows because it's efficient. We know each other.
There's credibility but people listening to this podcast, those those climbers,
(19:35):
a lot of them, most of them trying to aspire.
They need effectiveness more than efficiency. You get that personal
interaction because they're selling something, selling themselves, selling an idea
of selling a problem. So this digital only age that
some people wanted, it's actually harmful exclusively to partial relationships
and personal development. We had almost practice to be kind
(19:56):
again again the symbol for next door because we're been up,
because we're rusty, because we've we've been zooming and telephoning only.
So let's talk about your personal experience that's allowed you
to constantly remember it's about this, the extra step we
talked about Jack, that extra step of getting out of
(20:19):
your comfort zone. You've been hurt. I've been hurt probably
last week, tripped up, disappointed, somebody a chauvinist thinking you
should don't deserve to be CEO of next Door, CFO
of Square. Help the audience understand how you manage through pain,
through disappointment, how you've managed to build yourself in spite
(20:43):
of if not because of Yeah, there's so much in
there and so much that it's core is about resilience.
So a couple of things that really come to mind.
First on the resilience front, it's learning today. I have
a name for it. UM. There's a a framework called
icky Guy. It's a Japanese framework. It's four overlapping circles UM,
(21:05):
and it's about where do you find flow? And the
reason it's a Japanese framework it was done from research
about blue zones where people live the longest. Why do
you live the longest? Right, because you live in the
zone where you're not your body and your physical bodies
not under stress. And the four overlapping circles are what
are you good at? What do you love? Right, So
that's kind of a passion, but what the world needs,
(21:27):
So now you're getting into it's not just a mission.
And the fourth is what can you get paid for? Because,
as actually a really good woman said at one of
one of the events I've run for women, said, if
you don't get paid, it's a hobby. So that's fine,
but it's not a job. So thinking about, like where
you have flow is something that gives me than resilience.
(21:49):
So to your point, when you get the hard knocks
of life and people put you down, you can kind
of rebound because you have this you've learned how to
protect your own resilience, like your core. There's also an
arc of time that I think you have to remember.
So one of my first jobs, my first internship ever,
when I was at university, I went to work on
(22:11):
this gold mine in Ghana, and I was really intrigued
with the whole scientific process. And I got there and
the beautiful thing was seeing something in science come alive
in real life. It was super inspiring. It's like, oh
my god, I like this is what I want to do.
But the environment was so sexist that at the end
(22:32):
of that whatever eight week period, I was like, I
actually can't do this. There's not even though I love
science and like I think this is what I want
to do with my life, I will never be successful
in this environment, both because of like harmful sexism and
also just the unseen things, right, the fact that every
(22:54):
time the men were going underground check out the mind,
I'd have to fight to go as them because like
that wasn't a woman's place. And I was like, well,
I'll ever do the job if I can't go to
the place where the work is happening, or when there
was tea to be made, there was just this assumption
that I would make the tea and I would find
meself doing that, which I'm like all sorts of crazy now,
(23:16):
but I would just fall into the trap of being like, Okay,
well I'll make the tea, um because I'm helpful. UM.
So at the time, I didn't have the tools to
either pushback, stand up for myself, or aspire like the
whole you can't be what you can't see, like, I
couldn't see anyone that looked like me that was actually
(23:37):
being successful in that environment. So my reaction at the
time was like, okay, not for me, went home like
I'm out of this business. I'm going to become a
consultant because that seems way more doable. There are women,
you know, some not that many. Um. And then the
nice twist of fate is because I had done that,
(23:58):
McKinsey sent me to South after job because that was
where all their minding clients were. I was one of
the few people at the firm that had done anything
in a mind um, and I got to experience this
amazing moment. But I went to South Africa ninety six,
so a part that had just ended. I mean, it
was an experience of a lifetime, but pulling the thread.
(24:18):
So now I'm sitting at square, I have this inbound
to become the CEO of next door. I'm like, it's crazy.
I love what I do, love the people. It wasn't
was an inbound, mean Sarah, Well like a RECRUITERI was
actually again back to your point of relationships, make the
world on. Tons of recruiter called me all the time
like if you want to be the CEO of this
or that? Just didn't take their calls. I'm like, not interested,
(24:41):
speak to the hand. I'm here for life. But a
person called me who was hold on did you just sell?
Like assisted? Did you say speak to the hand? Speak
to the hand? Felicia. But a person who was a
recruiter but also we've worked together actually on some in
a nonprofit zone, and I was like, okay, I'll take
(25:02):
this call because it's like my friend and he managed
to hook the little worm that was like, oh, maybe
I should consider this. And you know, after a lot
of back and forth, I had a moment with my
kids where we were watching um, that movie The Notorious
RBG all about Ruth Vader Ginsburg and there's this moment
where you kind of have this like, Wow, this woman
(25:25):
spent her whole life lifting women up standing for women's rights.
And I just got like the goose bump moment, like
the tears prickling in my eyes moment. And my husband
looked at me and he said, you're gonna do it,
and I was like, I actually have to, because this
is my moment where I'm going to be what others
(25:47):
can see so that my daughter and my son see
that women can be CEOs, particularly ultimately not CEOs of
public companies. But it goes back to that moment in
Ghana A feeling completely impedent, and so you asked me, like,
how do you stay resilient? I have the benefit now
of like a longer term career where I know that
(26:09):
time will pass and I will get another crack at
that thing. When you're younger in your career, you can
really feel like I feel so in like when I'm
I ever going to get changed. But I would kind
of say remember that there's you know time as long
as you stay keep it in your core and really
don't let it naught you, but let it energize you,
(26:31):
because you are going to come back and make that change.
It's just not a it's not an if, it's a when.
That's been the other thing that I think has saved
me from the hard knocks of life of like, okay,
this is this hasn't killed me, and it's going to
power me. I don't know when, but I am coming
back to this to fix this, but I'm going to
do it when I have more power to fix it.
(26:53):
That makes sense, Yes, Dr king Uh. It was famously
said the law the arc of of the ark of
the universe is long, but it bends towards freedom and justice.
And what I'm hearing you saying is basically, you're part
of resiliency. Is not necessarily that you're stroggle than somebody else,
is that you never give up. Yes, I am like water.
(27:18):
I am going to eventually grind you down. That's right.
I'm going to realize it. That's right. Over the round
it through it, We're gonna get to it. Never ever, ever,
ever ever give up. And and so half of this
life is just showing up and never giving up, isn't
it right? That's so true? Oh my goodness, I'll last.
Like another great woman that I worked with because a
(27:38):
dear friend. Now, she would always say, never leave the
table if you're never leave the table. She's like, literally,
I stopped drinking so that I don't even have to
go to the bathroom. But I am not going to
be the person that leaves the table first. So and
and when you're a minority or a person of color
or a woman, sometimes you can overdo that, that overdo
(28:00):
the confidence. I don't know about you, but with me,
I remember the CEO of of Who's now Trust used
to be uh sent Trust, Bill Rogers. He had given
me a million dollar grant. This is from my philanthropy
operation Hope, and it was my first big million dollar check.
And I walked in to get the checks there and
(28:21):
I was like, oh, thank you, and I have a
vision here. We're gonna do this, We're gonna do that,
and we're going here, and we're going there, and he
should sitting there and finally we were friends. He looked
at me and said, John, take yes for uh an answer,
Take yes for an answer, and get out of my
office before I take the million dollars back. So I don't.
I sort of I sort of sold past the clothes, um,
(28:42):
but but I do believe that when you're when you're
and this is for all again, all the dreamers out there,
you've gotta You may not get early on a second
shot at the first impression. So get up early, stay
up late, work harder, study study longer. I know, Sarah,
when you're your walks, you're thinking, you're reflecting. You make
(29:03):
every moment count. Uh so really, haters have made you better? Totally?
Oh my god, Yes, because they are a fire in
the belly. Um, you don't want to live your life
on like grudget, Like you don't want to get it
in a negative zone. But I just view it as
a prove it zone. Um, you are helping me. You
don't even realize it, but you are helping me. And
(29:26):
I think that's a I mean, I do think it's
part of resiliency. Is that optimistic gene I get it
from my dad. So thankful, but it is the finding
you don't wanna be pollyannish like some things are just
truly horrible, but trying to find the piece of strength
inside the big negative like, I think that also can
(29:48):
be a great trait in life. Um. I do really
buy into kind of practicing gratitude, and I do it
in all sorts of ways. John, you know this because
you said on a board with me, and so it
can make people really awkward. But I find when you
start a meeting with a moment of gratitude just around
the room, it does two things. It first of all,
(30:08):
just helps break the ice, and you get to know people,
I think, on a different level, because you'll find some
people will be grateful for you know, the revenue growth
rate they just put up, and then other people will say,
I'm really grateful because you know, my kid just did
court a goal this weekend. Right, see these kind of
very you know, I think everyone you sit at a
(30:29):
table often we can come across as like almost robotic, right,
You can get in all of them, and I think
if you get them to drop into a personal zone,
it's a very it's a very quick way to kind
of form a bond. But secondly, again back to kind
of the physiological psychological connection, just the endorphins that go
through us when we think with gratefulness are huge, but
(30:51):
then allow you to approach really tough problems, really contentious
conversations in just a much different and much more different
constructive zone. And even if you can just hold yourself
in that zone for like seconds, that can make all
the difference to you know, like pushing away from the table,
walking out of the room, not being able to find
(31:13):
the way to make the deal happen. You can just
force yourself to sit at the table a little bit
longer and with a kind of an open, constructive, grateful mind,
you often can find the piece of commonality that can
get the deal done or whatever it is you're kind
of get done in life. But often it's around you're
making a deal. Like might not call it that, but
often you're trying to get a piece of work done. Yeah,
(31:35):
I'm hearing a couple of couple of things. One is
talk without being offensive, Listen without being defensive, always even
your adversary your duty. The second thing I'm hearing is
very much like working out. You want to warm up
the muscles so it relaxes. So if you warmed up
that room, people relax uh. And that allows you to
(31:57):
deal with difficult conversations, situations, and ultimately though, because you're
ultimately prepared and you know your your data code. What
I'm hearing you saying is I hope you like me,
but you're gonna respect me, Or put another way, I'd
rather you respect me and learn to like me, then
like me and never respect me, and by the way,
and work like women in particularly to say this all
(32:19):
the time, you go to work to be respected, not
to be liked, like it's like a great outcome. But
respected is what you're there for, like have your friends
at home, But you don't need to belove it work
if you're getting your work done. Now, I think what
you find is if you are at the top of
your game, people really respect you. They can't help but
ultimately like you because they'll find that that nugget. But yes,
(32:42):
do not, oh my gosh, do not think that you
need to be liked in a work environment. I think
that that's a real nugget for people who are watching this,
listening to this, trying to figure out what can I
hold on too? I don't think I can be I didn't.
I didn't think before this I could be serafied. But
but but there's but there's a you know, if you
can pick up three, four or five nuggets here and
(33:04):
hold onto them, you actually can emulate her life because
that's how she operates. She operates on a very small
set of core principles. It's just the stage has gotten bigger.
Let's pivot before we run out of time. Let's pivot
to your current position and next Door CEO, what's your goal,
what's your mission, what's what's what's what's got you on
(33:26):
fire about next doors and larger social network of neighborhoods
in the world, which I'm sure people know just went public.
Kudos to you. UH was one of the few UH
deals with a spact that had a very small redemption rate.
For those who understand, that means that means the investors
didn't sell off the stock when the deal closed, it
(33:47):
kept it. It was like it was in the team.
I mean it was in the single digits, low single digits,
and and typically it's the other way around, you have
a nine percent. People were just selling it, just making
their money going away. That's because they believed in Sarah.
In my view, So what's going on with with next Door,
with your future vision where we're going, And then and
then leave the audience, if you will, Sarah, think about
(34:10):
the woman, think of the young girl version of you.
Think about the inn inner city black or brown girl
trying to come up UH in a in a so
called man's world. Think about the the rural, the rural white,
young little girl who's not plugged into the power structure. Uh.
Think about the young strivers, male or female. What do
(34:33):
you leave them with? What building advice? How do they build? Uh,
something they can they can hold on to return to
as a concept and remembering right down for the future.
Those two questions, Okay, they're both awesome questions. So I'll
start with next door because I really want to land
the second one because in some way so I think
it's so important, um on next door, you know, simplistically, right,
(34:56):
our our our purpose is to cultivate a kinder world
where everyone is a neighborhood to rely on. And so
it harks back to what I was talking about and
all of that research. But if we can, you know,
learn to love local, localism is on the rise, if
we can find our community, find the commonality. Right. And
you know, there's disaster moments where I think humans are
(35:17):
humans we reach out of hand. Right. If you were
in Hurricane Harvey and literally someone was going past you
in a raging torrent, you stick out your hand, You
pull them out, right, You don't say excuse me? How
do you vote? And how do you feel about you know,
insert some societal problem you don't you just act pull
up personality save them at a moment. Now, I don't
(35:39):
want the neighborhood to be under that amount of dress
for people to put out a hand. And again I
think it's in the in local you can find your
commonality because I think on a lot of social it
doesn't matter what commonalities. You just want to shout the
other person down. And and honestly, the truth of it is,
most people are not persuadable. The more you try to
(36:01):
persuade them, the more entrenched they're getting. So actually, like
trying to persuade them, you are digging them further into
their belief system versus Locally, you can like stand next
to someone in the coffee shop and open the door
for them, or you can find out, as I said,
if your parents and you want to put like traffic
(36:21):
bumps in the road to slow down traffic. Again, these
are things you can work on together that are good
for your community, regardless of what you believe, believe you believe. Okay,
So that's what next door is all about. It often
starts with utility, so people come first for the help
me find a babysitter, help me find a great local
coffee shop. They stay for the community, like help me
(36:44):
find the local mom's group, help me find the local
elderly group. Right, I'm lonely, Right. I just talked to
that neighbor in Australia who had created a hiking group
for the over seventies I think it was. And they're
almost all women, because the sad thing is we all
live you so we end up ourselves. And so it
was all women and he had this sprightly eighty seven
(37:06):
year old who he has to slow down. But you know, again,
you can't do that, like if you're getting in a
Facebook group or a Twitter group, because the people can't
go on a hike with you they don't actually live
around you. So the next door is very much but local.
As you said, we're in one of three households in
the US. We're in eleven countries around the world thousand neighborhoods,
(37:27):
so we're having an impact. But I don't want to
do anything small. We can be a lot bigger. So
if you're not on next door, come join us and
be part of that active names totally. Yeah, it's totally
free because our job is to help you do what
you need to do to just make your life easier
now on the young girl, young boy individual growing up
(37:49):
without the privilege that today I can now have. But
I really empathize with what it feels like to kind
of have nothing. Um. First of all, I would actually
start with people like you and I write the first
thing you do when you get a seat at the table,
as you stand up, you turn around, you reach out
the hand and you pull up a chair for someone else. Right,
So so it's up to all of us to constantly
(38:10):
be on the lookout and say, okay, how can we
go give back? And sometimes you know, I'll go do
a talk at a local school, or I'll talk to
like in the UK, the w I and since you
my team gets so mad with me, they're like, why
are you doing this? Like it's not a good use
of your time. But I kind of believe there's a
karma there. Right in my life, there were just these
kind of moments where it felt like fate reached through
(38:32):
the wall and did something for me. So if I
could pay some of that back, that's important. I think
for those people sitting in those seats, don't be afraid
to reach out, Like, the worst thing that can happen
is someone says no, and you are no better or
no worse off. If anything, maybe you've learned that you
shouldn't ask that why there's a different way to ask,
(38:52):
So make the ask. Um. I often talked about mentors
in my life being someone I work with because they
see me, can actually give me real time feedback. Someone
I used to work with because they give they have
the truth serum that I wish they'd had when I
worked with them. But then that big aspirational person where
you're like, they will never mentor me, but you find
a way to them. Um. I when I was at
(39:16):
in banking and it was super junior, brand new associate
just wanted to do like good. I really was just
in awe of this woman who was the vice chairman
of Golden sachs Um and I just wanted like ten
minutes of her time. And so Number one, I found
the way to get to senior people is usually through
their assistance, their executive sistance. Those people own everything, So
(39:40):
if you're kind of suck up, that's your person. Um.
The second thing is they are not going to change
their time or calendar for you. You have to fit
around them. And ultimately how I got ten minutes with
her as her assistant called me. He said, she said,
she's about to drive to Midtown, where Goldman at the
(40:00):
time was down at the tip of Manhattan. She's going
to be in a cab. You have the time it
takes you to go for me to be the only
time my life in New York goes praying for traffic.
I'm likermous traffic chance. But she got in the cab,
and I got in the cab, and she's a little
bit like uh and she's like, oh yeah, that's right.
And and then I had asked like real, it wasn't
(40:22):
just like mentor me, that's the other thing that people
shop were like enter me. And I'm like, okay, I
don't have any time for that. What are your problems
and let's see what we can work on. And so
I'm prepared with like here here's a real ask what
would you do? And then follow up and don't by
the way, not the way not monetary, don't ask him
for money, don't ask don't ask him for a loan,
(40:44):
don't ask him for a job. Okay, go ahead, yeah,
just find that. It's more of like a fundamental like
I you know, I am struggling with being heard. Um,
I think I had some really good ideas, but they
often get dismissed or you know, seem to have just
breathe past them. But if a man says them, suddenly
it's like, you know, the earth moved. Um. She was like, Okay,
(41:07):
I know exactly what you're talking about. Here's a way
to be heard. And it was just such good potent advice. Um.
And equally later asking her to be my sponsor, my advocate,
not my mentor, was incredibly important and understanding the difference,
so you know, in the door is mentorship, and then
(41:27):
at some point tipping that relationship so that person, assuming
they're in your orbit, can actually go to bat for
you as well. I think often and by the way,
all the men listening love you all dearly, But often
men forget that they're not supposed to be advocates, so
they don't speak up right. I was. I was listening
to in the Noise Book and it's excellent, and she
(41:50):
says when women are being reviewed, what you'll hear from
men is like he did all these things mostly hit
his goals, and and then for women it's like she
all our goals. It's amazing what she accomplished. But but
I agree, and so as sponsors, you have to be
(42:10):
there for the moment with the butt to say, now
it's an end here, the thing that's right, that's right,
and and but and you need and you as an
individual need to actually prep what you want those people
to say, because no one's got any time. But if
you give them some talking points, they're going to do it.
So you know, I would really be on your front
(42:31):
foot and don't be ashamed to kind of your own
horn in that moment with what's going to come after
the end or how are you going to make sure
there's no butt? So coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.
As we wrap this great session up, Sarah didn't know
that one of my true fundamental p beliefs in this
world is you never want to have a button next
(42:52):
to your name. That's what you don't want to leave
a room. And somebody says, you know, I really like
John Bryan, but you know I really respect John Bryan.
But you know I would invest in his venture, but
you know I would be a philanthropic investor to his philanthropy.
But I worked my whotel of my whole life, so
(43:14):
that you can say you don't like the way I dressed,
the way I walked, the way I talked, But there
never be a butt that was substitutive tied to my
my name because I got up early, state up, later,
worked harder, showed up when no one else did. Uh
And and I wanted to create a bond in that
first conversation because it may be the only conversation we
(43:34):
ever had, and so that you wanted to so that
there was a connective tissue that we could come back
to later. And I think that's what you were also
talking about. You created a lot of connective tissue in
this world where there's a lot of folks want to
bat for you. I can't. I love what somebody calls
me about Sarah Fryer, so I have an opportunity to
tell them what a good leader looks like. Again, not perfect, perfect,
(43:59):
boring exists where you know, what Sarah I try to
do is become reasonably comfortable in our own skin. And
that's I think a real gift for anybody listening to
this And if your own leader watching this or listening
to this podcast, I want you to know that one
of the most boring and underwhelming thing you can do
in your life is to do nothing. Sit there and
(44:19):
clip your coupons and cash your bonus checks and do
nothing for nobody. If you want a legacy, you gotta
reach out to extend beyond yourself. And that's what Sarah
has done. And she's extended beyond herself personally, and now
she's got a job as CEO of next Door where
(44:40):
she's doing that professionally. Next Door is all about extending
with kindness, uh and a business plan that does well
and does good at the same time, beyond oneself. This
is John O'Brien. You just heard a master class on
leadership with Sarah Fryer, the CEO of next Door, publicly
(45:01):
traded company under the ticker Signal Kind, former CFO of Square,
born in Northern Ireland. Built of resiliency. She doesn't want,
like me to walk out of a room and have
somebody leave with the word. But oftentimes a man gets
the benefit of talking about another man being reviewed by
(45:23):
another man. Of the end, he did this good job
and this and that, and he's a good golfer, and
you know we went to the same college. Oftentimes, if
you're a minority of your woman, you'll get a butt.
He did a decent job, but he needs to work
on this. But he didn't fit into the social fabric.
But he doesn't have a sponsor in the company whatever
(45:43):
the thing is, because of society is not necessarily a
level playing field. You can't get angry, you can't get
a great or a chip on your shoulder. The world
will see it and tax you for it. You got
a step over mess and not in it. The man
is your class. Here is replace yourself the with the
(46:04):
absence of someone else providing, and you're removing your work.
But when I leave a room, I make sure they
can't say, you know, I really respect John Brian, but
you know how to invest in his business. But you
know I would support his philanthropy. But the butts the
killer because it gives people an excuse who don't want
(46:26):
to necessarily help you anyway, not to You want to overwork,
over prepare, show up early, stay late, do the job
nobody wants. Don't do it with a chip on your shoulder.
Let the haters make you better. Show up and give
everybody an excuse to have the work. And next to
your name, this is John Hobrian and This is building
a good life. Building the good life with John Hope
(46:49):
Bryant is brought to you by Credential Financial
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