← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Everything You Believe About Success is Wrong (Why Talented People Fail -- and How to Win) | Sarah Robb O'Hagan (Fan Fav)
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- [00:00]
Tom Bilyeu
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- [00:14]
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- [00:45]
Tom Bilyeu
You're listening to the Impact Theory podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeu, serial entrepreneur and co founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory. Hello everybody. Welcome to Impact Theory. You are here, my friends, because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless. But you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it. So our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. All right, Today's guest was twice named to the Forbes list of the most powerful women in sports. She's been the marketing director at Virgin, the marketing director at Nike, and her two most recent gigs were as the president of Gatorade and then Equinox. She's such a super stud that the media has dubbed her the Pied Piper of potential. But that's not at all what anyone would have guessed when she was growing up. By her own admission, she showed no early signs of success. She wasn't voted most likely to succeed or selected as her school's valedictorian, and her climb to corporate prominence was messy and hard. She got fired twice in her 20s and went through what she calls the canyon of career despair as she struggled to find her lane and develop her unique talents. Despite some hard knocks, like the time she was told she needed to learn how to dress better and a deep and nearly constant fear of getting fired. She began to find success by stepping out of line, staying true to her authentic self and doing things her way. There were many tears and much continued messiness, but like any good Kiwi, she muscled through, doubled down in times of trouble, and pushed herself to improve Daily. Despite her total lack of interest in being perfect, she has found her way, building an unbelievable career that is uniquely her. And regardless of any ups and downs. By the time she was 38, she was the global president of a $5 billion company leading its successful turnaround and reinvention. AT named her one of their Women to Watch. Fast Company highlighted her as one of the most creative people in business. And Sheryl Sandberg called her a woman who doesn't just sit at the table, she stands on it. Please help me in welcoming the CEO of Flywheel, the author of Extreme you and the founder of the Extreme you movement. The woman best selling author Adam Grant called a badass of the highest order. Sarah. Rob o'. Hagan. How you doing?
- [03:24]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Awesome. How are you?
- [03:27]
Tom Bilyeu
Thank you.
- [03:28]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Wow. Absolutely overwhelming. It's awesome to be here, man.
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Tom Bilyeu
Doing this research was really interesting. Seeing how much fun you have was really surprising because you think like, as people become more and more aware of what women especially have to do to really climb the ladder, you think of them as really taking on sort of aggressive, traditional male tactics.
- [03:51]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah.
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Tom Bilyeu
But you're also fun and funny and laugh till you snort, which is one of your.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
It may happen today.
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Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I'm very open to that. So that's pretty incredible. Now I wore this shirt in your honor which. Toughen the fuck up, buttercup.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Let's go.
- [04:08]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I was really.
- [04:09]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
I love that I did that.
- [04:10]
Tom Bilyeu
I love how you answered every question about what people have to do to succeed with. Basically, you've got to shine, you've got to outwork people, you've got to bust ass. And is it true that in New Zealand that like one of the biggest insults you can say is you're half assing it?
- [04:23]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Oh, for sure. Like that means you're fucking like not bringing it right. And that means like you're not even like contributing to the team little alone doing the best that you can do. So for sure it's not cool.
- [04:34]
Tom Bilyeu
I love that. And you said something in the book. It was like you have to like have an honest assessment of like your assness level.
- [04:41]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
All right. I actually you mentioned Adam Grant. Adam partnered with me and we created a quiz that is now on my website, extreme you.com, which measures your arseness level. Are you kicking ass? Are you half ass or you like totally not asking at all? And it's awesome. Like we've gotten it down to psychological rigor.
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Tom Bilyeu
What are some of the questions?
- [05:01]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
It's really interesting. Like I having wrote my book as you know, where I basically Studied some of the world's most successful people through a very broad range of walks of life and careers. So, you know, I'm talking Bodie Miller, who's a downhill skier, Mr. Cartoon, the tattoo artist Condoleezza Rice, kind of successful, Right? And I interviewed these people and then said, how do I figure out the common threads of what made them essentially achieve their potential? Which is, I know what you believe in. And Adam Grant was really helpful in guiding me to the psychological underpinnings of what they were doing. And really, it came down to some pretty systematic behaviors that they all had, which is what we tried to capture in this quiz. So it were things like openness to new experience. People who are too scared to try something out of their comfort zone generally don't get to the next level of their own potential. Humility was a huge one. You know, like, the willingness to say, I don't know the answers. I'm going to ask for help. Personal drive, you know, like, just being willing to push yourself. So, you know, there was. There was definitely some just obvious behaviors that they all had, and that's how we figured it out. Like, what is the definition of kicking ass? It's basically putting all these behaviors together.
- [06:22]
Tom Bilyeu
That's interesting. Humility was one of the things that comes up in your talks and in the book that I thought was really, really interesting. You talked about how so going through the career canyon of despair. I love that. Or the canyon of career despair, I thought, wow, that's good. And as you were going through that, that you got your ass handed to you so roughly that you were like, I'm now going into the Nike job with real humility. But you said then, looking back on that, that may have been part of the reason why you succeeded. So why is that? How did that play out?
- [06:56]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah, so I don't know if it's just standard part of growing up. Right. But I certainly. In my 20s, you know, I had a few experiences where I broke through and had some early successes. Right. So one being, you know, I'm 26 years old. I'm partying at the Cannes Film Festival with Richard Branson. I mean, like, that's kind of amazing for someone who came from a country of 50 million sheep. Let's just start there. Right? And so I'm thinking, I got this. I'm like, the shit. Like, I can't do any wrong. And then I turn up to. At the. A new job at Virgin Megastores, which I don't know if any of the audience knows that we used to buy music on things that went round and round, you know, in a retail store.
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Tom Bilyeu
Virgin Megastars.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Well, and I show up at the time actually that Napster had just come along, so the whole industry is being disrupted. But I just thought I could do no wrong because I had. Had done so well at Virgin Atlantic, the airline, and there was just a cockiness and an arrogance that just got ahead of me, right? And so that was one of the reasons I ultimately ended up getting fired. And to your point, it wasn't until I'd had my ass handed to me a couple of times that I realized, this is not working. And then it's almost like you just get such a dose of, like, when I started at Nike, I was like, I just don't want to get fired. So I will do anything to help and support and listen and learn. And truly, like, that is what I think made me successful there. Because I was a sponge, like, taking it all in and recognizing that there was a hell of a lot more that I needed to learn to be good.
- [08:30]
Tom Bilyeu
You've got such a cool perspective because you're actively running businesses and have been for a very long time. So as you're writing this stuff, it's. I'm thinking, okay, well, how do you teach that to your culture? What have you learned to look for, like, in interviewing? What do you train your HR team to look for? And do you have, like, qualifications? Like, we look for these things. What does that process look like for you now?
- [08:54]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
It's a great question. And it's something. I mean, in my current job, I'm CEO of Flywheel, which is an indoor boutique cycling company. So we're a relatively small company and we're a young company, which I love young company in terms of seven years old, but young in terms of our employee base. And so we're at right now at that point of how do we start to get more systematic? Because we, I think in the early days, because our culture was built on one of just performance in general, because our proposition is an athletic performance fitness experience, we attracted people who were attracted to that, so we just kind of did it naturally. Once you start to scale up, you actually have to do what you just said, which is how do we more systematically make sure we're looking for these right behaviors? And I'm just such a big believer I could give a shit about educational qualifications. If you don't have the right set of behaviors and sort of humility and teamwork, capability to play well on a
- [09:57]
Tom Bilyeu
team, you know, how do you so Just having gone through this. So at Quest, we ended up scaling up to. We had 1400 employees by the time that I left. And it was absolute madness. And when I was hiring one on one, I thought I got it right. Because you can look in their eye, you can spend time with them, you can ask them crazy questions. Most importantly, you can follow them down a path. They say something, you see a micro expression, you can chase it down. I was good at that once. It was now my HR team has to go and try to do that same thing. Then it was like I realized I'm only as good as what I write down because now it's trainable, it's teachable, it's pass on. What are the things that you write down? Or if you haven't already, what do you think are some of the core things you're going to need to instill in the agency?
- [10:43]
Grainger Announcer
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done,
- [11:13]
Tom Bilyeu
our team to make sure that they hire right.
- [11:15]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Actually, this goes back to how you opened this entire discussion. It was funny. I'd never thought about the point you said of like, you know, the further up your career, you probably become a little stiffer, a bit more, what's the word I'm looking for? Like held back. Whereas I seem to have gone completely the other way around. Because I think I've learned along the way that when you are trying to be something you're not, that's when you lose your confidence. And so I've almost gone this completely other way to here it is, F bombs and all. And if I fuck up, like, come on, team, let's be honest about it, tell me. You know, and so I think as part of that, and I think as a leader, particularly in the world we live in today, it's up to you to consistently express what matters to you in terms of your value. So I'm making a lot of effort with my blog posts and whatever, to really point the whole time to the examples of those values that matter to me, that also matter to our leadership team. And they are a lot to do with commitment to the team, resilience, you know, willingness to take risks but push through to the other side when things are not going well. And I have to write about them, but I also have to demonstrate them. I think that's the other big thing. On a daily basis, like, I'm very conscious in meetings of when I've walked out the door. Did I leave the impression that it's okay to make mistakes and if I didn't, I better circle back around and make sure I articulated that?
- [12:44]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I love that. And that opportunity that you have as a leader, to really live it and let people see it, like, that was so important to me. So at Quest, I had created the 25 bullet points that it was a belief system. Right. And I remember it came out of we were trying to create a traditional value system, and most companies have them, and it's like a sentence or two of what we stand for. And I just couldn't do it. It all felt so trite, like I was really trying, but then I was like, this isn't going to help somebody. Like, reading it, you sort of get a PR message of what we're about. So I sat down and literally, like, in one pass, just wrote, what were the 25 things I had to do to my mind to go from feeling like a trapped employee who was trying to keep his head down, do as little work as possible and avoid punishment at all costs, to, like, really, like you discovered being myself, bringing something unique to the table, that I can actually trust my instincts. And so once I wrote those 25, I thought, whoa, like, this is really it. If people took this and did it, we'd be golden. But my fear was that they'd memorize it and not do it.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yes.
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Tom Bilyeu
And so what you're talking about so fascinating to me of how do you show grit? How do you show that it's okay to make a mistake? And to that end, what happened when you met Angela Duckworth, the queen of grit?
- [14:04]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
The queen of grit. It's a great question. I love her, obviously, and it's. Speaking of grit, when I was writing my book, did become a stalker of the people that I knew needed to be in my book, Angela Lee Duckworth. And I was like, I'm just gonna keep going, and I'm not gonna take no for an answer. But it was what I loved about Angela was, you know, she'd written a book on, you know, passion and perseverance and what grit is. But I wanted to speak to her specifically. Okay, tell me about you, the leader, and how does this come to life in your own day to day life. And she dropped pearls like you can't believe. But the one that really stuck with me was she said, when I think about my employees, there's not one of them that would come to work and say, I turned in a piece of work and it was good enough for Angela. Like, she's like, there's without a doubt, I am pushing, I want more, I want more. She said, and there's not one of them that wouldn't know that 24 hours a day I've got their back. And I was like, I have chills just hearing that. I was like, that's it. Like, as leaders, it's our job to push and to make sure we're saying, just when you think your limit is here, we can push you a little bit further. But you have to know we're in it with you. Cause I think it's the two sides that go well together. That's what I learned from Angela anyway.
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Tom Bilyeu
And how do you find people that you can push that hard? Or what qualities do those people have to have to be pushed that hard?
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I do think resilience, like grit is the biggest one. And that's what I. That is one of the behaviors, actually that I studied when I was writing the book, because it's really interesting to me, the difference between people who come up against an obstacle and just get stopped by it, and those who just go, well, there's no reason why I can't get through it. And so to me, like, that's one of the things I really push when I'm interviewing, you know, new employees. I bet you went through this too, where you, this day and age, like kids coming out of college, have been so scripted as to what they're gonna say in an interview. Here's my perfectly packaged failure. Here's my perfect. You know what I mean? And so I always go, okay, get through it. Okay, now tell me the next one. Okay, and now the next one. And now the most epic fail in your life. And then they're just like, but that's where you get down to the levels of where was the real resilience? Like, is this a marketing story of what you did? Or what did you learn in adversity? And what did you dive deep and find inside yourself? And how did you push through it?
- [16:40]
Tom Bilyeu
I love that because anybody that's read your book knows that you have your own tale of that, where you got fired, tried to make it everybody else's fault, and finally realized that's not helping. Right. I have to own it. And so then you started going to interviews and saying, I'm just going to tell you why I got fired so that you know I've learned. Right?
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yes.
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Tom Bilyeu
Walk us through that. Like, what gave you the courage to do that and what was the result?
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
So it's funny, I obviously publicly go everywhere and talking about the Sarah gets fired stories because I don't think leaders of my level do this enough. And all of us have had embarrassing screw ups along the way. Right. And it is amazing to me how every time I give a talk, there'll be the line of three people at the end who come up and say, I just got fired, I've lost myself, I don't know what to do, I'm terrified. Like, it is a really, really tough experience. And I always use that story of, like, the obvious question they all say is, what the hell do I say in my next interview? And I learned it the hard way from sitting in these interviews trying to dodge the question and trying to go, oh, well, it was a company downsizing, you know, and it's not until you know, because you realize when you're doing that the person looking at you is just like, they don't believe you. And so you're like, okay, that's because I don't believe me. And as soon as you just say, hey, this is embarrassing, I don't know how to say any other way, but here's what happened. Your vulnerability in that moment just makes that other person suddenly want to almost help and care for you, I think, and which leads to a much more open conversation. And it's very hard to do, particularly when you've just been through it, because you're at that weakest point where you feel like, God, am I ever gonna get a job again? But I always tell people, just try it. Even in the most tiny way. Take a step forward to acknowledging what you did and what happened. Because the minute you acknowledge what you did, you have control over changing that.
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Tom Bilyeu
It's really interesting. So one of the most powerful. There's a few movements in your book that I think really add up to something strong. And one of them is to have that vulnerability to really own it. But then the other one is that as you begin that process, the danger of, okay, I just had a fail. The danger is that you're going to now try to fit into the box the next time, but that you actually put yourself into a weaker and weaker position. You touched on it a minute ago, but take us a little Bit deeper into what you mean by stepping out of line. And how do people balance, like the two moments that you've had where you were winning, but you became arrogant, and then later you realize, I can be me and humble at the same time. How do they cultivate that?
- [19:26]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
That. Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, so going back to stepping out of line, like where that whole idea came from is. Is I do think, culturally, you know, a lot has been written about the millennials and the entitlement, whatever, and I kind of call bullshit on that. And I more say this is a generation that was raised with a very different parenting style to probably what you and I were like where I grew up. Certainly it was, you know, fend for yourself. I was the youngest of four, and I was like, I don't think my parents ever came and watched me play sport, let alone acknowledge a participation trophy. Yet we then had this next generation where there was psychological belief that you would build self esteem by really protecting people from the things that could go wrong. And I think the output of that was people didn't step out of line because it's kind of like I have to follow the perfect path and everything is going to be fine. And so I really wanted to delve into this. And going back to Adam Grant, he helped me with some of the research around. There's moments in your career that are those clutch moments where there's an opportunity in front of you that no one else is stepping up and taking that you can step up, take advantage of an opportunity that no one else is seeing because you have a certain set of experiences and skills. Now it's the people that try and clutch at something that aren't experienced enough yet that get. And the whole team gets annoyed with them because it's kind of like, whatever. You're just trying to take the credit just very different to. You can bring a value to the team because of what you already know and you can move the ball forward. And it's funny because I often hear from people, they'll say to me that, you know, take today's college graduate. If I've heard it once, I've heard it 500 times. This is the hardest environment to get jobs. It's so competitive and da, da, da, da. And I'm like, talk to your grandparents who graduated in the recession of, like, 1930. You know, this is not hard compared to other eras. It's just that no one's given you the skill sets to recognize how to make it happen for yourself to overcome that. Hurdle. So you go to a job interview and you get told your resume's not good enough. Okay, how are you going to go back in there with a reason why? How are you going to take some value to them and say, here's what I can do for you? You know, it's like reframe it.
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Tom Bilyeu
What I love is these are not empty words for you. So you had a where. Oh, this was back at New Zealand era, right? Where you weren't selected and you were like, nibble. Woah, woah, I don't think you guys understand. Tell us that story.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
No, it's funny, looking back, I didn't realize what a pivotal story it was in my life when it happened. But this is. I graduated college and I came out when it was a very tough time in the economy and there was way too many graduates coming out for the number of jobs available. And so we would all apply for the big companies and they would make you take these tests, you know, like intelligence tests or whatever. And I remember taking the test and I did the same set of tests for Mobil Oil Co. And Air New Zealand. So Mobil, I crushed it and they offered me a job. Can you imagine me working in the oil business? Like, can we just go there in New Zealand? I take the same sort of tests. I just had a bad day and I fucked them up, like completely. And I knew I had. And I get home that night, I was like, like I really wanted to work there. Not just a little bit. Like my whole dream was like, I come from this tiny country, I need to work for the airline. It will fly me somewhere. That was my whole like. And I was like, I can't let this opportunity go. And so I get the letter saying, we used to, when we were kids, we used to call them PFO letters. When you got a reject, please fuck off letters.
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Tom Bilyeu
I've never heard that before.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
It was very well known amongst the college crowd. And I was like, I can't accept this. But if you just go back and sort of whine and complain to the you were unfair on me, that's gonna get you nowhere. So instead I went back to this, the woman who was the hiring manager. And I actually created a whole set of thoughts and ideas that I would like to bring to the airline. So I'm bringing value as opposed to going in and saying, this isn't fair. And I think, you know, I was a stalker a little bit too, let's be honest. But she ended up saying, okay, I'm gonna give you a bow with the actual line manager, it's your time. If you can prove to him, you know where you go. Long story short, the guy hires me this. They were meant to have six graduate trainees. He creates an extra job for me, which in any corporate America, that never happens. I mean, how do you get to do that? And what that ended up doing is the whole sort of storyline of me stepping out of line. Him taking a bet on me caused me to work 500 times harder than anyone else because I needed to prove that my seat was worthy, you know, and that in itself, I think is a good motivator for success.
- [24:33]
Tom Bilyeu
I love that. And there's another. And I re. Everybody lean in right now because this you want to pay attention to, because this is actually how you get ahead. You, it's okay because you've done it. You do this again, where you go, you show up at Virgin, you think you have a job. The guy that hired you now isn't there anymore, doesn't say a word. By the way, you've been planning for months. You move, you show up. And
- [24:57]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
so I moved to New York, put all my credit cards fully maxed out. The little kiwi. I don't know anyone in New York. And I move into a non air conditioned apartment, which was very bad because it was cheap. And it was like August. I'm like, oh my God, I'm like sweating my ass off. I turn up to the office at Virgin on the first day, I walk in and say to the front desk and I ask for the name of the person who'd hired me. And the lady behind the desk says, she doesn't work here anymore. I'm like, wait, what? Literally? She goes, I don't know who you are, but yeah, she doesn't work. And I walked into the bathroom and just bawled. I was like, oh my God. I've like put all my life on hold for this job. And then I come back out and I go back up to the desk and I said, well, she may not work here, but I have a piece of paper that says I have a job. And so find me someone in hr. So eventually the HR person like puts me in a little cube in the corner and the whole. The person who'd hired me actually had been let go from the company, which is even worse.
- [26:00]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I was gonna say even better.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Even better. And so I was like, oh God, like if anyone's about to get fired, it's gonna be the person she hired. So I sit in the corner and at first I was like, this is really bad. They're gonna get rid of me. And that was when I was like, I have no choice, but I've gotta move quickly to prove that. That I have value. I can add here. And long story short, I spent a weekend with no sleep writing a marketing plan for the airline and organizational structure, and I put it in an envelope and slipped it under the president's door. I still can't believe I did that when I think about it. And I was like, he's either gonna think I'm a cocky, you know, don't deserve any opportunity, or he's gonna see that I have value to add and I'll do anything to, you know, to hold on and be here. And, of course, the latter happened. I ended up not only getting to do all the work, but I actually got a promotion out of it, which is incredible. And it's just a good story of don't ever worry that, like, someone didn't ask you to do something, just get on and do it. It's like when people say to me, you know, I want to get a promotion. Well, go bring more business into your company then, because guess what? You'll get rewarded pretty quickly. Yeah.
- [27:12]
Tom Bilyeu
One thing that I love about that, and you've talked about a lot in your book, is don't try to please me as a CEO. Right? Please don't try to please me. Because what I actually want is for you to help the business.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yes, yes.
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Tom Bilyeu
So, one, what do you mean by that? Exactly? And then two, for anybody watching now that really wants to supercharge their career, how do they put that into action?
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
This is a great one. And because I actually think this applies a little bit more to people mid career. And particularly because when you get to mid career, maybe your late 30s, 30s, 40s, you got more on the line. You might have, you know, kids, you got a lot that. That is resting on you. And I think that's when people get more fearful. And I certainly observed when I was working at Gatorade, and it was a massive turnaround, and it was, you know, in the recession, and, like, it was a very stressful time that initially we would go to meetings and people would keep saying to me, well, you need to present it this way, because that's what Indra, the CEO of the company, is looking for. But that would have required presenting information that wasn't gonna successfully turn the business around, because it was what they'd done before. And it suddenly occurred to me, like, why are we trying to please the boss? She wants us to succeed. She doesn't give a shit whether we do it the way she expects us to. I really believe when I say, don't come and please me, I say to employees all the time, I believe when they have their own kind of ideas of how to solve a problem, they will fight so much harder for those ideas than if I try and say, I think you should do it.
- [28:43]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that's critical. And that ties into your notion of the mountain's gotta be yours.
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Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah.
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Tom Bilyeu
What do you mean by that? What is Sir Edmund Hillary, Who's a fascinating character, by the way.
- [28:52]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
For sure. I got very into my mountain metaphors in the book. Sir Edmund Hillary is a Kiwi, and he was the first man in the world to summit Mount Everest. And I use his quote at the beginning of the book. It's not the summit we conquer, but ourselves. And it's a beautiful quote. Give me the chill.
- [29:12]
Tom Bilyeu
Give me the chills. And I read in the book, great. The mountain being yours in the book you're referencing, like, to have that drive to really do what you have to do. So you have to, like, I want people to feel this in the context that you wrote it, which is, man, you've got to grind. Like, if you want to win, you've got to show up to play. You call it swinging hard. Right. The Kiwis know how to swing hard. And if you really want to make something come true in your life, you've got to. You got to really, really go for it. And thusly, the mountain has to be yours.
- [29:39]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah. Because I think what happens, particularly with younger people, is whether it's your parents, your professor, boss, like everyone else has got an opinion on what you should do, but if it's not your dream, you're not going to fight nearly as hard for it. And I think that's where I feel so blessed that I had parents who gave me the tools to, you know, education, like a great childhood to succeed. But then it's like, you go figure out what you want to do. I never felt any pressure to be anything, do anything. It was like, you go figure out where is your mountain to climb. And I found with all of the people I interviewed for the book, that is what stood them apart. Like, in every instance, they had a dream that significant, influential people in their life said, it won't work, you shouldn't, it's too risky. But it's what they cared about. No one else knows what's going on inside you except you. And I think once you know, that's something you really want Just clear out the obstacles and go.
- [30:39]
Tom Bilyeu
You're gonna teach your kids, like, what do you want them to take away? Are you more laissez faire? Like, let them find their way. Are you gonna make sure they've got grit and tenacity? Like, what does that look like?
- [30:52]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
That's a great question. I mean, certainly they all have to hand back participation trophies.
- [30:57]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you really make it, like, give them back?
- [30:59]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah.
- [30:59]
Tom Bilyeu
That is amazing. Where's that anything after three at all, period? No trophy. What if they win the championship?
- [31:06]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
If they win, that's. They won't for sure. Yeah. No, but if it was just for showing up. No. And they always like, oh, y. That's my mom. The one that makes sense. There was one once or twice where early on where they kept the trophy, and I allowed them to. If we repurposed it for an achievement they were trying to do themselves. I really, really believe that it's about getting them to understand that you will be happy and fulfilled if you do whatever you do in your life off your own steam. You know, I think that's, for me, the. That the single biggest learning is, like, don't look for shortcuts. Don't look for people to give you handouts. Like, go figure it out for yourself, because that is what will make you the most satisfied, happy person that you can be.
- [31:54]
Tom Bilyeu
And what do you think has been the secret to your success? And one thing I'd love you to touch on is you've said, I never saw myself as a great female executive. I was just the best executive.
- [32:06]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah.
- [32:07]
Tom Bilyeu
So, one, how'd you not fall into that? And then, two, like, why? What makes a great executive?
- [32:15]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
I come from New Zealand, and we, many people may not know, were the first country in the world to give women the vote.
- [32:21]
Tom Bilyeu
Really?
- [32:21]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
30 years before the United States.
- [32:23]
Tom Bilyeu
Wow. I didn't.
- [32:24]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Isn't that amazing? And I have wondered, is that why, as a woman, I grew up with a set of different cultural guardrails? Because I remember coming to America and discovering what Title 9 was, and I was like, why would you need something like that? Like, it just never occurred to me growing up that as a female, I couldn't do anything that I wanted to do. And it's funny, I think now for women, I give Sheryl Sandberg, clearly, so much credit and love for what she's done to start this conversation on what we need to do to get more women into leadership roles. And I feel like sometimes we can get all of the data in our way and use that almost as a reason to not take the step because there's so much incredibly real data that says that you, you know, are not gonna get funded in the same way as a guy will, you won't, you know, so you've just gotta almost say those are today's circumstances, but they're not a reason not to change and move it forward. And I think for me, I just have worked in predominantly male industries the whole way through and it just, I've never even really noticed that I was the only woman at the table. Very often I just was like, well, fuck, I'm here. And so I'm gonna do the best. And it's up to me to outperform my peer group, whoever they are.
- [33:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you have strategies for self improvement? Like are there things that you do?
- [33:52]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah, I mean, I, I think I'm more purposeful about them having written the book and studied other people the way I just have. And I'm now very, very focused on getting out of my comfort zone, like pushing myself to do things that I haven't typically done.
- [34:10]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you have an example?
- [34:12]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah. I mean, even like in the job I'm in today, right now, it's like every day, you know, we have a. As I mentioned, we're launching a big startup, tech startup on the side of our business, which for me is a whole set of experiences I've never had. I mean, if I was looking back to last year and some of the job opportunities that came my way, there was a lot that I could have easily done and made a shit ton of money that were just kind of, of keeping me in the same set of skills. Whereas to take on a smaller, you know, company that needs to be scaled up with like, that was really quite a big challenge for me.
- [34:48]
Tom Bilyeu
Is that an important thing for you to reinvent yourself, to get a new skill set, push yourself out?
- [34:53]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yes.
- [34:53]
Tom Bilyeu
Talk to me about that. Because that's. Most people get stuck there.
- [34:56]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yes, because I think that maybe it's because I, I get very restless if I don't feel like I'm growing. And I think that is something that I saw was a common thread of all these people I interviewed too, is that when you get to mastery, that feeling of just comfort, that kind of after a while you're like, okay, this is good, but what more can I be doing? I think up until now my career was about the. What's like, you know, the what did I do at Gatorade? Will we turn the business around? What do we do at Equinox, et cetera. Now I'm focused so much more on the how. How do I achieve the save results and frankly, have a more positive impact while doing it, which is kind of pushing me out of my comfort zone in a bigger way.
- [35:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Let's dive into, like, the book book for a second. So what does it mean to be extremely you?
- [35:48]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
So, first of all, the title, everyone goes, well, to be extreme, you, does that mean that you have to be loudmouth? You have to be extroverted? You know, and the answer is absolutely not to be extreme, you is to be the extreme of your personal set of passions, skills, idiosyncrasies, behaviors. Right? So I always tell people it starts with what blows your hair back when you get up in the morning. Like, what makes you go, I fucking gotta do this? Like, what really excites you? Combine that with what are your natural skill sets, Style, et cetera? Like, as you can tell, I'm very extroverted. I love people. Like, I wouldn't do well if I was in a job or a role that, you know, was in a box without people that I could interact with. What are those things that you know about yourself? And then the extreme part is, once you've sort of understood that is the kind of lifelong commitment to keep pushing your boat out a little bit further. Like, every time you get to the top of your game, push it a little bit further. What's the next challenge you can take on?
- [36:51]
Tom Bilyeu
And how'd you pick? The people that you picked for the book are so diverse.
- [36:55]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
I know.
- [36:56]
Tom Bilyeu
Like, how did you come up. Did you come up with a list and go, these are the ones I'm gonna go after. Did you have a much bigger list? Those are the ones you could make contact with.
- [37:03]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
What I really wanted to do, I put a lot of into it, being there's 25 people in the book, the most diverse cast of characters. When I say diverse, I mean styles, country of origin, career. They ended up. Like, I just wanted it to be something that anyone out there could find, a story that related to them. And. And I also found what was so fascinating about doing it that way was that, you know, I would have these moments of just, like, jumping up and down after I'd done an interview. And I'm like, how is it possible that Bode Miller and a chef are using the exact same language and how they do what they do. You know, it was cool.
- [37:44]
Tom Bilyeu
Tell people who Bode Miller are, because once, you know, like, if you don't know what he does, that's a pretty big swing.
- [37:50]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
So Bode is The most decorated American downhill skier of all time. And he. I have a whole chapter that he helps helped inform about pushing through failure and what I call making failure your fuel. And his basically strategy as a skier was to just crash more than all the other guys. And because it made him more battle tested and it made him push harder on race day. And then I talked to Sam Cass, who's the former White House chef. You know, I was always like, you know, chef. I'm sure he would have come up through a more sort of artistic, creative side. He was a former, like. Like, he wanted to be a professional baseball player who failed and used a bunch of skills there to move into the world of being a professional. Shit. Like, it was amazing to me that these kind of completely disparate experiences led to behaviors that were clearly uniformly driving these people's success.
- [38:47]
Tom Bilyeu
And what were some of those behaviors?
- [38:49]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
So definitely, like, resilience, as we mentioned before. Definitely a willingness to just go for it in the face of people saying, here's all the reasons why not. So I'll give you an example. Will Dean, who's the founder of Tough Mudder, who you must have on this show sometime. He's fantastic, but he gives a story. I don't know if you know what, if your viewers know what Tough Mudder is, but it's the obstacle mud run where you get electrocuted and you jump into dumpsters of ice cubes. And sure enough, like, he's now What? Something like 2 million people have done these things worldwide. It's crazy. Extraordinary movement. But he had so many influential people in his life. Tell him, you are crazy. What are you doing? And he just, you know, had that just clarity of vision and that, this is what I'm here to do.
- [39:41]
Tom Bilyeu
So you said something makes me. Why did you start a movement? Why? So you got the book. Why act like you actually have a movement? You have a website, the whole shebang.
- [39:52]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yes.
- [39:52]
Tom Bilyeu
Why wasn't the book enough?
- [39:54]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
I think because today, especially the way, you know, younger people are wired, they want to take action. They want to participate, not to just be passively reading. And I felt like, yeah, I felt. I knew that the act of all of the research around the book would lead to this great piece that. That people could read, but they'd want to apply it to themselves. Like, I felt so strongly. I didn't just want to write a book that was a great beach read and a bit of inspiration. I wanted it to have really practical tools that I can go home and apply to me myself now and Help make myself be better at what I'm trying to. Trying to do.
- [40:37]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I love that you said something really, really interesting in the book. Let me see if I can get really close. If you just failed and you've lost your confidence, good. It means you're actually processing through it. And if you're going to fail, you better be better on the other side. And to do that you have to process it.
- [40:53]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah.
- [40:54]
Tom Bilyeu
How, how do people learn to process through that? How do they not just get stuck?
- [40:58]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
I have found when I go speak particularly to college kids, but actually people of any age like, the failure thing is a really big scary topic for people. It's bizarre to me, maybe because I've been through so much of it that now I'm like, whatever. But it is like it absolutely paralyzes people. And I can't tell you the number of times I almost see the eyes of a college student. It's like, I want to take a course in college. That's the failure course. And I've checked the box and I'm always like, I don't know how to explain to you that until you've been to the depths of the canyon of despair, that's where the learning and the growth comes from. And you come back so much stronger on the other side. And if you haven't done that, then you haven't failed, then there was no point. And it kind of, I suppose it's easy for me to say because I've had so many massive fuck ups that, you know, I'm still standing. But I do feel like you get to a point later in your career for anyone, particularly if you, you know, want to be in leadership, the stakes get higher, it gets tougher. And if you haven't been through some really shitty times and endured, you will not have the intestinal fortitude to handle it. And I think about the Gatorade turnaround. Like for me, I realized nine months into that when I had Wall street analysts, the media, everyone basically writing articles on how badly I was fucking up Gatorade. And I realized, I can remember saying to my boss, it was like, here's the deal, we've either got to go for it and go this way or you should fire me now. Now, I wouldn't have had the courage to even, even do that had I not been through those earlier experiences.
- [42:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that makes sense. I am deeply horrified that we're running out of time. So. But where can these guys find you online?
- [42:49]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah. So Definitely go to extremeyou.com and I'm Xtreme SRO on Twitter, stream Sarah on Facebook. And so, yeah, come join the conversation for sure.
- [43:03]
Tom Bilyeu
Awesome. And I have one last question.
- [43:05]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yes.
- [43:05]
Tom Bilyeu
What is the impact that you want to have on the world?
- [43:07]
Sarah Robb O'Hagan
Yeah. So I started touching on it a little bit in terms of I really, really want to help the high potential young people in this country and in the world who, because they were not born in the right places with the right connections to go to the right colleges to open the right doors, don't get the same opportunities. And if there's one thing I know about my own story, it's like, I don't have an mba, I didn't go to an Ivy League college, but somehow I had the right mentors and parenting to give me the grit to get around the system. And so if I can help other people see that, find that in themselves, then to me, that would be amazing.
- [43:53]
Tom Bilyeu
That would be amazing. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us, guys. I could only ever hope to give you the very tip of a massive iceberg on this. I really encourage you guys to read the book, watch her talk, see the interviews that she's doing, take it all in as a gestalt, and you will really understand why it has been said about her that she doesn't just sit at the table, she stands on it. You're going to see the enthusiasm, the passion for results, and that's the part that I want you guys to take home. I hope you've heard what she's been saying about grit and resilience and how you have to push through and how, how so much of this came from her time at the bottom of the canyon of despair. And that truly. And here's the bad news, the canyon of despair, it eats the souls of many of the weak who enter it. But the people who are brave enough to climb back up the other side, to rebuild their confidence, to actually process it, as she says, those are the ones that go on to rule the world. I just gave myself chills thinking about what you've been saying. God, guys, this is the truth. And you know, that is my standard when I can say that somebody's advice will make your life better. Because it's real and it is true. It is the highest compliment that I could pay them. And Sarah, I pay you that compliment in spades. So, guys, be sure, go out there, engage with her and her movement, and if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Thank you guys so much for watching. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And for exclusive content, be sure to sign up for our newsletter. All of that stuff helps us get even more amazing guests on the show and helps us continue to build this community, which at the end of the day, is all we care about. So thank you guys so much for being a part of the Impact Theory community.
- [45:45]
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