Pat Hedley: Building Relationships Before You Need Them

Welcome to the Wisdom of Women Show.

We are dedicated to amplifying the voice of women in business.

A new model of leadership is emerging and we are here to amplify the voices of women leading the way.

I am your host, Coco Selman, five time founder, impact investor and creator of the Force for Good system.

Thank you for joining us today as we illuminate the path to unlocking opportunities and prosperity for women led enterprises by amplifying the voice and wisdom of women.

Today, we have a social capital sage in our midst.

Pat Headley is a respected Investor, Board Director, TEDx speaker and former private equity executive whose career spans more than three decades in finance, investing and leadership.

As a senior leader at General Atlantic, one of the world's premier growth equity firms, she helped evaluate and support high growth companies around the globe.

She is also the Author of Meet 100 People, A Practical guide that has helped countless professionals expand their networks, accelerate their careers and unlock opportunities through authentic human human connection.

Today, through her board, service, speaking, advising and advocacy for women leaders, Pat continues to champion the idea that success is built not only through expertise and hard work, but through meaningful relationships and the courage to ask for help.

Welcome Pat.

Thank you Coco.

I'm so excited to be here with you.

It's such a treat, an honor to meet you and know you.

And so as we get started, what is a book written by a woman that has significantly influenced your life?

This is a wonderful question because there are so many books, but the one that comes to mind is Indra Nui's autobiography, My Life in Full.

And I love her story for so many reasons.

But one in particular is that throughout the course of her career she's always looked to other people to help educate her to be ready for whatever the next step is that she was taking.

And there's one story in particular.

When she was out in Chicago, she was a BCG consultant.

So she understood this idea of getting experts and understanding more about the world by talking to people.

I think she took a role in Motorola if I'm not mistaken.

But she decided to learn about physics and she hired a professor to help teach her the basics so that she could educate to herself and understand what she was getting into.

And that is just one example and I think she gave several others over the course of her career where she really very proactively self educated in every step of the way.

And I think that's such an important lesson for all of us.

Nobody is born knowing everything.

Nobody's born knowing anything in fact.

And you know, there's Always the first time CEO.

She had not been a CEO before she became CEO of Pepsi, but she knew how to get advisors around her and people around her to help her succeed.

And I think that's a super powerful message for anyone.

Agreed.

I love that you suggested this book, My Life in Full.

I love this book and the story.

And I think it's so important to see how great people arrive in their highlights of greatness and the stories that get them there, because it's like you say, you're not born knowing everything.

Right.

You have to endure and go through life and learn and.

Great.

I love that book.

And so thank you for suggesting it to us today, Pat.

So.

So the next question I always ask my guests is because you care about relationships, right?

So I always want to get into what's really in the background of who a person is.

And here you are, this incredibly successful woman.

But what has gotten you here?

And what are the moments in your life that have shaped who you are?

So the question really is, what are three moments and from your life that have shaped who you are?

Moments that you were bold, Moments where you got knocked down, Moments where you recovered, Moments where you made a big choice.

What are the moments that you think of in your life that have had the biggest impact on the person that you are most proud to be today?

I can't help but think of my parents, and my mother in particular, as really shaping me to who I am today.

And I guess there's one if you want to pick a moment and moments are hard.

But there is one moment that I remember as a young girl where my mom asked me to do something, and I'll describe this.

That was very scary for me, but she made me do it.

So my mom was an entrepreneur.

My parents were immigrants.

They came to this country with nothing and barely spoke English.

My mom ended up becoming an entrepreneur, a very small business that she ran from our home to start, and the whole family was involved.

It was a data entry business, something that we now do on our computers ourselves.

But there was a time when people entered data into computers so that you could process it.

In any case, she had employees.

And my mom asked me to answer the phone and talk to clients.

And I was terrified.

I was a child.

I knew that I would sound like, like a child.

And it really made me nervous.

I was also very reserved growing up, believe it or not, from someone who wrote me 100 people.

I am an introvert by nature.

But my mom forced me out of my comfort zone.

She did it in that moment when she says no, you're going to take the call and you're going to have a conversation.

She did it when I was 16 and she asked me to let go of one of her employees, which also terrified me.

And it was an incredibly hard thing for me to do.

But she also, through the way she interacted with people, taught me to be fearless.

Because my mom always said, you have nothing to lose.

And frankly, my parents didn't have much to lose because they didn't have much.

So it kind of made them a little bit more bold and fearless than I think they otherwise might have been.

But my mom instilled an incredible work ethic in me, an ability to interact with people in a way that I think is kind.

Because my mom always said, it doesn't cost you a penny to say something nice.

And she really lived that.

And I saw that.

So that's one important moment.

Another one came when I this is how I got my role that lasted me almost 30 years because I showed up in person to cancel an interview and that changed my life.

I already had a job for the summer between my years at business school.

I had just taken it.

It was one of those situations where take it now or you don't have it.

And I had a letter, and this is dating me from a firm, a no name firm that wanted me to meet them.

And I showed up in person, in my jeans to cancel the interview because I already had a job.

And basically they didn't let me.

They said, let's, you know, we had a conversation, I met some other people, they invited me to a dinner with other students.

And the short of it was I fulfilled my obligation to the firm that I had accepted a job from that summer.

But I had extra time and I worked for this firm.

I worked part time my second year at business school and I joined them full time, was there for almost 30 years.

So if you want to talk about a milestone, kind of a fork in the path, I could have not gone to cancel the interview.

I could have written them a letter or a phone message at the hotel where they were interviewing.

I could have done a number of things, but I decided to go in person, in my jeans.

By the way, crazy to think that there wasn't a time when you did that.

Right.

That was a pivotal moment.

And I'll describe one more which really did make a difference.

This was after I had left this firm and I was doing advisory work and I thought about writing my book.

At first, whenever you have a big goal, you think about it and Then if you're brave, you mention it to someone and then if you're really brave, you mention it to a family member, a loved one.

And I had mentioned that I wanted to write this book and my youngest son, who at the time was a senior in college, said, mom, you're just talking about it, you're not doing it.

And that threw down the gauntlet for me because one of the things that I think is so important as a parent is to live what you expect them to live, is to give them a good example.

And I said, okay, you have just challenged me.

You're right.

I don't want to be the kind of person that just talks about something.

I'm going to do it.

I promise you I will have this book out and in a book form published before you graduate.

And I did.

And that changed me.

You know that sometimes doubt can be rocket fuel.

Certainly you want to support you and encourage you, and many people did along my journey of creating the book.

But this one little moment that my son kind of said, you're just talking about it, you're never going to do it, changed me.

And it took me on this incredible journey with this book that honestly, I never expected, I couldn't have foreseen it.

And the whole last several years with respect to the book has reinforced exactly the message that I have in the book that so many good things happen if you say yes to meeting someone, if you're proactive about helping people, if you approach relationships in a very different, non transactional way that some people talk about, you know, when they talk about networking, I think about it as a journey of learning to be honest.

And I think if you approach meeting new people as an opportunity to learn, to share, the whole thing becomes very different.

And I wish I had known that earlier in my life.

Thank you for sharing those three incredible moments.

We met, we've only met in the last month or so and we met through a mutual friend, Natalie Benimo.

What's outstanding to me is your way of showing up that I think is so remarkable.

You show up ready and prepared.

You have this incredible integrity about you.

Your follow up is extraordinary, notable.

And when you share the story about going to this potential employer and saying, I can't come, I already have accepted.

It really identifies for me how you look at relationships and the value you place on connection and opportunity.

You did not take that for granted.

You didn't, you wanted to honor it even at a young age coming out of business school.

And I feel like this is such a through line in Your book and also in who you are.

Like when I think about you, the person that you are at 22, or having to fire someone because your mother put you in the hot seat and gave you that opportunity to stretch and grow and be uncomfortable.

And yet at the same time, you are one of the most kind and gentle and soft people.

But I can tell you also have great boundaries and high expectations.

I mention all of this because I feel like it's little, little things that this is what creates a beautiful life.

Success, love, like all the things.

Look, I think you have to live what you believe.

First of all, I think you have to know what's important to you.

So I always start with that.

And you like to discover that in other people too.

And I think if you have a curiosity about that, you can learn an awful lot.

But learning what drives someone, what's important to them, what is top of their mind, what gives them joy, those are very interesting, different kind of questions that you might ask someone even in a business setting.

I don't have issues asking questions like that in any kind of setting.

It reveals a whole lot more about the other person and it allows a way to connect.

I think of networking and I talk about this as three Cs.

The first most important is you have to commit to doing it.

So that's something within yourself and that's something where you look deep and say, is this important to me?

Is it valuable to me?

Am I going to do it?

And it's a commitment, like any commitment you make to anything that you think is worthwhile and important.

So that's the first C. The second one is the connection itself.

How do you find that?

You're not going to find it with every single person that you meet.

And that's okay too, right?

But you are going to find it with some people, and that's going to mean that there's going to be more to the learning process.

And then the third piece, which you alluded to, which I really focus on a lot myself, is the continue part.

How do you continue the relationship?

How do you follow up?

When.

When I meet new people, I always think about what else in my sphere could I recommend?

Or what person could I introduce to this individual that might be helpful to them?

And then I really feel, if I suggest it and say it, I actually really feel an obligation to make sure it happens.

And I'll give you a story that happened to me last week.

I went to this lovely event and I met a woman who I had not met before, before.

And we really Hit it off for a number of reasons.

And she's also an author and a TEDx speaker.

As I was talking to her, I thought about somebody that she should get connected to.

And I said I was going to make that happen.

I like to check with people before because I think that's a nice thing to do unless you're 100% positive and they totally trust you.

But I wanted to check and the individual didn't get back to me.

And so I felt like, oh my God, I offered this, but this isn't happening yet.

In the meantime, I listened to her TEDx talk and I actually bought her books.

Cause I had another reason to do that too because I was gonna share it with somebody for whom it was very relevant.

And so I gave her feedback on that and I was still waiting on this other person to come back to me.

And I actually felt if she didn't come back, I would send another gentle follow up to see.

I really thought this connection would make sense.

And she did, she did follow up.

I was able to connect him and, and once I did that I felt so much better because I had put myself out there saying I could offer this and then if I couldn't have offered it, you know, but if, yeah, oh, those things I think matter a lot.

And so many times people do say, oh you know, let me introduce you or let me whatever it is, they make an awesome send you something.

They don't follow up and it feels so badly.

On Sunday I was at a tea, I happened to talk to a man I had never met before.

He also wrote a book, fascinating conversation we had.

And he's in the art world.

And my young niece is trying to get a job in New York for the first time kind of in the art community.

He said, I'll talk to her, I'll have a conversation with her.

And I said I'm going to take you up on it.

If you offer, I'm really going to take you up.

And he said absolutely.

Connect me to her and we'll have a conversation.

Doing those things for me certainly at this stage in my life, but I think everybody should be thinking that way.

Yeah, that gives me joy and I am really hopeful that this man and my niece, it's an incredible opportunity for her to talk to this particular person.

I hope they learn from each other.

I mean it'll be interesting for him to see what a young person is thinking about and how she's approaching like her job search.

And I think it'll be amazing for her to get the Perspective of someone who understands the sphere of life in a very different way than she could even imagine.

She doesn't even know what she doesn't know.

Right.

Open up those windows to her.

Which is.

It's so cool.

It's extraordinary.

And okay, so I have a couple questions.

I'm going to first back up and go big picture.

And then I want to get down to some practicalities of how you organize yourself to do this, because I think that's part of what holds people back is they don't necessarily have a system.

So let's come to that.

But first, your whole premise is around meeting 100 people and that as you do that, you're opening the door for meaningful relationships and catalysts for opportunity.

So as we talk today to our listeners, who are mostly founders and growing companies and trying to navigate how they focus their time and energy and attention, how do you guide a founder?

What would be the advice you would give to a founder to really focus their attention and make the most out of a hundred people they might decide to meet?

I talk to founders all the time and I fundamentally believe that founders who are mindful and thoughtful about relationships have a huge advantage over those that aren't.

And I think first of all, it has to be a little bit of self reflection on what do I need.

Right.

And who might I like to meet.

And one piece of advice I give is find those people that might be helpful to you well before you need to ask them for anything.

So for founders, talk to investors before you need an investment.

Talk to talent before you need to hire.

You need to get pattern recognition to see what good looks like.

Yes, talk to your clients all the time or potential clients all the time.

Because you need to build a brand.

You need to put yourself out there.

You need to become known for whatever expertise, product or service you might be selling.

So it's a broad sphere of who you should be talking to and it can be overwhelming.

In terms of time, time is all of our most precious resource.

Nothing is more precious than the minutes you have every day.

And some people use those minutes very effectively and some don't.

I think you do need to allocate time for these outreaches and I think that you can also be efficient in doing that by what I learned is called stacking habits.

So there is a book called Never Eat Alone.

I used to give it to all the new hires at my prior company.

There is no reason you should be eating lunch at your desk by yourself.

There is no reason that you should be having breakfast by yourself.

You can find ways to be with people, to meet people, to get that relationship building continuing and going in the course of your day.

Right.

So find those moments where you can go on a walk and talk with somebody, where you can go exercise with somebody, where you go out to dinner with a couple of people, where you really can fit it as part of your day.

And then in addition, block calendar time.

I use my calendar as my manager.

I keep track of who I speak with.

I do follow ups so that I have a tickler later on I should touch base with this person.

I think it's very important to be organized around this.

And if it's as little as an Excel spreadsheet, do that.

Or to put in a plug for a young entrepreneur, Caroline Dell, that I know who just started Good Word Use a System, and she just launched a system that helps you in managing your relationships.

But find a tool that helps you do that.

Because you know what you forget?

You forget conversations you have.

You might forget the follow up that you suggested.

I'm really good at follow up for one simple reason.

Because I love to do it right away.

I don't do it right away.

I forget it's hard.

It falls off the priority list.

So usually when I say something, I'm great at doing it immediately for one simple reason is because it works for me.

And actually it's great for the other person too.

Right?

But I don't want it.

When I say I'm going to do something, I don't do it if I can't do it.

If it's a Monday and I can't do it till a Friday, I put it on my calendar.

I'm doing it Friday, but I like to get it done Monday usually.

So I'm quick that way.

That's my personality.

It just makes it easier for me.

But you have to find systems that work and you have to be mindful of it.

And you have to follow up with those people that you did have good relationships with.

And some, I mean, there's one hack that I learned from a young venture capitalist.

I give her all the credit.

She has breakfasts every so often with a group of people, invites six to eight people for a breakfast.

Love that.

Once a month it's always a different group.

I'm sure she gives some thought to who might connect with whom.

And oh my God.

It's an efficient way to bring people together, give them gifts and have you be top of mind because you're the person bringing people together.

And I always found that a lot of people Say they're too busy, but if they're invited, they're going to say yes.

They just don't take the effort to invite.

And I have to force myself to do this too.

So I wouldn't put myself in the A plus category here at all.

But having lunches where you invite a couple of people that you think would be great to know one another, or going to an event where you invite some people.

Yes.

All of those things are just incredibly efficient, wonderful and memorable ways to continue to build your relationships.

And founders, entrepreneurs, honestly, should really focus on doing this.

Yeah, I love that you mentioned at the beginning, too that you're an introvert.

And I actually am, too.

I need my alone time to recharge.

That's where I get my energy.

But what you're describing here, having lunch with someone, meeting with a small group, networking, this kind of networking, following up, this can work for someone who is introverted.

It can work for somebody who's extroverted.

You want to say a little more about that?

Yeah, I do.

I will tell you.

I remember early in my career, I had to go to conferences and events.

I will tell you, they were terrifying to me at the time because I was young and there were a lot of people.

And I do think I'm an introvert.

And I have totally flipped the script on conferences.

And there was one moment in particular that did it for me.

So I was at that Entrepreneur of the Year event for ey, which I think is one of the most wonderful conferences ever.

I had met a lot of people, and I will tell you, it was after lunch.

I was exhausted.

My social battery was so empty.

And I thought to myself, like, I could go upstairs and work on emails, which I know a lot of people actually end up doing.

And then I thought to myself, but when am I going to have a chance to be with exactly the kind of people that I like to be with again?

I mean, in this special way?

And so I left the conference room, I took a moment for myself, I walked around for a little bit, and I said, just go in and meet one more person.

One more person.

That's it.

Just one more.

I can do that.

Everybody can go in and meet one more person.

I go back to the area that I was, somebody immediately takes my hand and says, pat, I want you to meet Kara.

And I met this entrepreneur.

We had an incredible conversation.

I ended up investing in her company, and I have known her since.

Just because I decided to go back in there for one more meeting.

And I actually think, you know, meet A hundred people is a wonderful goal.

Yeah.

You don't have to do it in one day.

No, you don't have to do it at one conference.

Right.

You really have to do it one individual at a time.

And now when I go to an event or conference, I have a totally different perspective.

I go there feeling much more comfortable.

I don't have pressure.

I don't feel like I have to meet everyone and pick up business cards.

Right.

I think going to a conference for me, if I meet two people, two that I will follow up with and have some kind of conversation with, huge success, I call it a win.

And I went to a conference not long ago, sat down next to a woman, we started chatting.

I told her my philosophy of conferences.

She said she feels the same way.

We've had several follow ups.

Huge win.

Right?

Huge win.

And if you go to a cocktail event and you talk to one person and it's a little bit like, I went to this tea party Sunday and it was a small event, it wasn't big, but I ended up talking to this man for an hour.

I think we both enjoyed it tremendously.

Otherwise we could have easily talked to some other people.

But it was.

That was a win.

The hostess was lovely.

I had time with her.

I met some of the other people, but I didn't have as in depth conversations.

But I did with this person.

And this is the person who's going to be helpful to my niece or at least have a conversation.

That wasn't my goal going in.

I didn't know that would happen.

But I think having a meaningful little longer conversation with someone, that's a win.

That's a win.

Totally different than, you know, I have 10 business cards or 20, and I'm never going to talk to any one of them.

I'm never going to follow up with anybody.

I've done that too.

Yay.

Oh, this is a win.

It's not right.

It's those longer communications, those heartfelt conversations that really work.

And I've been able to do that too at one event and it was an EY conference as well.

I met a young woman.

We had such a wonderful conversation and I ended up investing in her company.

I ended up seeking her advice for my TedX talk because she had done one when she was 18.

So she gave me such invaluable advice for how to prepare for that.

I learned so much from her.

I was able to help her in creating her business.

Just from one conversation?

Yeah, one heartfelt conversation.

One great conversation.

So a lot of women have Trouble asking for help and asking others to leverage their networks.

What is your advice for that?

How can we reframe this so it feels authentic, generous and aligned with who they are and they're ready to do it?

Right.

Well, someone has this incredible quote which I put in my book.

If you don't ask, you don't get, like, you know, no one's coming to save you.

If you are going to say what you need, what you'd like, what you want, how do you expect the world to read your mind?

Right.

How do you expect things to align for you?

I think maybe it was my mom at an early age which kind of instilled this idea of yes.

And I think she had to because no one was going to help her out.

Being a female entrepreneur in the 60s and 70s with a foreign accent.

And so you have to self advocate and you can do it in a very nice way.

I mean, you can talk about what you're interested in and what you like to do in a very accessible way.

Yeah.

When I first published the book, and to this day, I'm still excited about it.

I think it's relevant.

I think it's really important for people.

So I do talk about, and it shouldn't be surprising to me at all, but it was a little bit.

People helped me.

People wanted to do something to help me promote it.

I think either my enthusiasm or the way they received it or whatever it is made a huge difference in my journey.

But if I hadn't talked about it, no one would have known.

How can somebody help you if they don't know what you're doing or what you might like?

And I don't think you necessarily lead with, you know, can you tell other people about my book?

Not what I did at all, but, you know, what are you working on?

Well, you know, I wrote this book.

It's been so much fun.

And here are the things that I've learned and all of a sudden it's different.

Like the man on Sunday.

I'm sure he'd be shocked to know that I'm talking about him so much.

He wrote a book and I went and I got it right.

He didn't say, go buy my book, but he told me about it.

And it's an incredible.

It's a book about Basquiat, the famous artist, and he put in so much time and effort into it, and I couldn't help myself.

I want to read it.

I got it.

It's thick.

But he made me curious, the way he spoke about it, not asking me but the way he spoke about it made me want to learn more.

And I'm going to read it, and maybe I'll gift it to people who are super interested in art.

Why not?

Right?

Right.

But if he hadn't told me about it, how would I know?

Yeah.

And I love that what I'm hearing you say is that he was so grounded in his own purpose and passion.

He wasn't looking for you to do anything for him.

He was just like he had an answer to the question, what are you working on?

What's important to you?

And I think when we have clarity about that, not what do you want from others so much, but what's important to you, then you can come into a place of talking about what you're up to that is inspiring to others, it's attractive to others.

It creates magnetism.

You know, I love that.

So, okay, you serve as an investor, an executive, an advisor, over the years, a board director.

From these vantage points, what qualities do you believe today's leaders really need?

And what creates both financial success and enduring positive impact?

That is such a great question.

In the age of technology, when so much can be done through technology, I think what creates lasting value is really understanding how you can add value.

And that means understanding your target audience, understanding what do your clients need?

What problems do they have?

How are they thinking about their problems?

As opposed to, I want to sell my product.

Right.

I need to understand what do you need.

Right.

Which flips it a little bit.

It's not just selling.

It's understanding a need and trying to fill that need and then being able to address that, whether it is through a product, a service, a technology.

Look, I think technology is pervasive.

It will impact almost everything that we do.

But those people who can marry humanity with technology will have a huge edge.

Those people who can build relationships, create teams and cultures, create alignment within their team to serve a purpose, whatever that purpose is, that's not easy to do.

That's harder to do to get people moving in the right direction.

And then also, and this is something that I was inspired by listening to another podcast recently to show enough vulnerability so that people will help you if you need to pivot.

Because guess what?

You're going to need to pivot.

Whatever it is that you're doing, there are going to be adjustments.

There are going to be sways with my book.

I thought my book would appeal so much to college guidance officers.

What I learned is that it doesn't as much because many places think they know how to solve that and they're also cash constrained.

What did I learn with my book?

Alumni offices love it.

They want to bring their alumni back.

They want people to network.

They know that it is in the network, the value of the networking, that whatever educational institution will benefit from that because people who are, well, networked can help one another and then they can also go back to their alma maters and help them.

Right.

Did not know that.

And so you learn with all sorts, you know, you can't have a fixed.

If I had just said, oh my goodness, this is only for this one group and I wasn't open minded to learning and having to adjust to whom I'm selling and to whom this appeals.

It's a big learning and you have to do that.

Simple example.

Take the biggest corporations.

And I listened to an interview with Jensen Heng from Nvidia recently, which I thought was fantastic.

And he is one of the most humble executives I've ever.

I have not met, but I have heard in various kind of situations.

And he was almost at the verge of bankruptcy a couple of times with Nvidia, which is tremendous to them.

And he is the one that talked about having the vulnerability that other people can come and support you and help you change and adjust as you need to change and adjust.

So young founders and entrepreneurs, I think an incredibly important part of what they should be thinking about is who do they surround themselves with?

Not just internally, their team, externally, as advisors that can help them during those times when they're not sure whether to go left or right and they need to gather data and have people who can give them that information.

So surround yourself with people who have different experiences than you do.

Surround yourself with smarter people.

It's great to be in a room with people much smarter than you are.

You should feel comfortable doing that.

Uncomfortable, but comfortable, because that's how you're going to learn.

And I'm a huge believer in continuing to learn.

I love that.

And I'm curious to know.

You're in the board world, right?

You're active in the board world.

And what are you seeing right now?

What are the unique challenges or observations or trends?

What are the things that are coming up right now that leaders of bigger businesses are facing?

And what is your guidance?

What is your thought around that?

Look, there's a lot of change happening.

There's always been change, but I think the rate of change is even faster.

AI is not well understood yet.

And there's a lot of opportunity to use it in effective and productive ways.

There are a lot of risks that need to be managed.

So risk management continues to be a huge topic at any board, whether it's technology risk or human capital risk.

Right.

People, the conversation around people.

How do you find the very best talent?

How do you retain them, how do you motivate them?

How do you make sure that they learn over time so that they can manage through change and they can help pivot an organization, a group, whatever?

All of those are super important topics.

One of the things I think is really important for boards to consider is how they continue to educate themselves.

Because, again, you know, I would not call myself an expert on AI, but it is an area that I'm very interested in, and it's one I've spent some time trying to understand and learn.

I think you need to have more of that knowledge at the boardroom, because many people don't know what is the art of the possible.

Right.

And unless you open your eyes as to what is possible, you're kind of limited in whatever your silo is in general.

How do you open your eyes?

How do you make sure that your board directors understand not just what's going on within a company, but very importantly, what's going on externally in the environment, what are customers saying and doing, how are people thinking about things different and making sure also that your board has the right kind of talent and expertise to take you down those paths where it's not just, we've known each other for a long time, and everybody thinks in a very similar way.

I think you need to add people often that bring a different perspective, whether it's a deeper technological perspective, whether it's a deeper understanding for human capital and the way you leverage human capital, whether it's expertise related to what's going on in the world, international expansion, whatever that is, or whether it's some hybrid person who has a lot of those skills, but is not the kind of person that you'd necessarily say, oh, this is a cfo, so we're going to put this person on the audit committee.

Right.

And that hybrid person is rare.

But adding people like that I think is super special to boards.

I think that's really poignant to where we are in the world today, and I think it lends well for big businesses.

But I asked the question because sometimes when we're running smaller companies, whether we're a million dollars of revenue or $3 million of revenue, it's hard to see the bigger vantage point.

And oftentimes it's what's happening in the boardrooms of larger companies where there are people thinking about this.

Right.

That's their job, like your job.

It's important for us to bring that into how we run our smaller companies.

Honestly, one of the things I've done recently, I listen to more podcasts.

I'm in the car, you know, I wouldn't say a lot, but at least three over the course of a week.

For sure.

Three hours.

I have something I go to, and I think, you know, there's so much out there.

Right.

There's so much you can listen to that can be inspirational.

But I find it fascinating when I can listen to a podcast with somebody that has run a business like a Jensen Hang, like, so, you know, there's just so much learning.

And one of my other takeaways from having listened to him for two hours, by the way, the other day, not all at once, is he's constantly learning.

Yes.

He's constantly thinking about what else is there out there.

And I think as a founder, entrepreneur, you're right.

It is hard, especially when it's early days and you don't have a team and you're doing so much of the blocking and tackling yourself.

You're in the business instead of looking at it from, you know, a little bit of a distance to be able to focus on the business and not just execute.

And I almost think you need to carve that out.

Yes.

And you need to carve it out with whoever your executive team is.

You know, okay, we're going to figure time to solve problems, but let's figure out and spend a morning on where are we?

What are our customers saying?

What are our people saying?

Kind of the perspective part is so hard to do when life is so incredibly busy and everything's changing and everything's on fire.

Right.

But every so often, to do that is tremendously valuable because it shifts the way you think about what's next.

Yeah, I think it's, you know, I know you advise earlier stage companies as well as bigger companies.

So for last, sort of pearl of wisdom for our founders who are focused on growth and for all the reasons we need growth.

Right.

We want to have more impact in the world because when we have more growth, we have more gross profit, pays for more of the operations, and ultimately creates distributions and prosperity for the shareholders.

What are some wisdom that you offer a woman founder in particular and how she thinks about growth?

Look, I'm a big believer in trying to be profitable as soon as possible.

Me too.

If you are not profitable, figure out why.

It's usually because either your product or service is not valued adequately.

By your customers because you're not adding value or you're not selling it.

Right.

Or you're not charging enough.

Right.

So that to me, a focus on profitability is so essential because a profitable business has more flexibility and has more flexibility to grow, has more flexibility to raise capital at valuations.

That makes sense.

And it's really kind of an indication of whether what you're doing is on the right track.

And in order to do that, it also means you have to focus more.

You have to focus more on what's profitable and what's not.

And I think one of the things entrepreneurs, they have a million ideas, they have a lot of energy, they can think of so many things that they can do and that's wonderful.

But if they get distracted and focus on 10 things, it's not useful.

I would advise any founder to kind of project forward 12 months and say, what are the three things I need to get done?

Three things I need to get done.

And if you can come up with three things that in a year you will say, you know what, I'm in a good spot.

That very simple exercise will add a lot of value to your business and will make your life a whole lot easier.

And I don't think a lot of people do that.

One young entrepreneur I know does something incredibly credible and I would advise anyone to do it, which is she writes a year end report the year before and says, this is what my year end report is going to look like next year.

Okay, now think about that.

You are projecting.

This is what I will have achieved.

And it sets your mind in a very different way.

In a way, it almost manifests the future, but it also gives you a roadmap to where you're going.

Yeah.

And to really think.

And again, it can't be a list of 50 things you're going to get done.

It has to be a short list of all those things that you want.

You know, time travel forward a year.

You would want to be saying, it's a miss entrepreneur.

Huge credit, really intelligent, smart idea.

I love that.

Thank you for that wisdom.

That is a great pearl for sure.

So, Pat, let's move over now to the Fast Fire round.

So I'm going to ask you five questions to answer in five words or less.

Are you ready?

Sure.

So what is one habit that has contributed most to your success?

I think I'm really good at follow up.

Amazing.

What is one skill every founder should develop that isn't taught in business school.

And building relationships?

Right.

Yeah.

What is the most under underestimated asset in business.

I think the integrity of the leader.

What's your favorite way to invest in yourself?

I'm big into working out.

Wonderful physical fitness.

What is one word you hope people use to describe you 50 years from now?

Curious.

Oh, I love that.

Pat, you are a gem.

The word that I was thinking about as I was preparing today was integrity and you brought that up right?

To have high integrity leaders is so important.

Thank you for being here.

We so appreciate the wisdom that you've shared with us.

Thank you for illuminating opportunities and prosperity for all of us.

Thank you.

This was really a pleasure and I am so glad we met and I know we'll continue to be friends.

Thank you so much Pat.

And to all of our world changing listeners, be sure to follow like and share the wisdom of women.

Show on whatever your favorite listening reviewing platform is.

And remember, the world is made better by women led business.

So let's all go make the world a better place.

Hear, hear.

Great.

Thank you.